Back in 2018 I had a wild idea to start trying to track the distance of home runs hit by Cincinnati Reds prospects. Doing that has gotten a little bit easier each season as more broadcasters are mentioning the distances from the in-house Trackman or Hawkeye systems, two of the teams have at least some public facing data, and for the full-season teams you can now watch just about every game.
I would like to start with the caveat that while the Florida State League has Hawkeye in all of the ballparks but one, the one ballpark that it doesn’t have it is Daytona (which is the only non-big league spring training stadium in the league). I was still able to get most of the distances on home runs hit at Jackie Robinson Ballpark, but not all of them.
The Tortugas hit 91 home runs on the season. That was the 4th most in the league out of 10 teams. Bradenton hit 111 to lead the way and Jupiter managed to hit just 40 of them. The average number of home runs per team in 2024 in the league was 79.
With all of that out of the way, let’s take a look at the Top 10 list for the longest home runs hit by Daytona Tortugas players in the 2024 season:
| Player | Date | Distance | Measure |
| Ariel Almonte | 6/26 | 460 | Trackman |
| Ariel Almonte | 4/27 | 447 | Trackman |
| Ariel Almonte | 5/4 | 445 | Google Maps |
| Ariel Almonte | 5/17 | 427 | Hawkeye |
| Connor Burns | 6/1 | 424 | Trackman |
| Connor Burns | 8/6 | 424 | Hawkeye |
| Trey Faltine | 7/31 | 420 | Trackman |
| Connor Burns | 4/5 | 419 | Hawkeye |
| Trey Faltine | 8/6 | 418 | Hawkeye |
| Ariel Almonte | 7/9 | 413 | Google Maps |
Ten spots. Three players. Ariel Almonte makes up half of the list, including all four of the longest home runs hit by a Tortugas in 2024. Those four home runs also make up all four of the home runs that topped 425 feet by a Daytona batter. Connor Burns makes up three of the next four spots on the list, with Trey Faltine making up the other two spots.
It’s not surprising to see Ariel Almonte atop the list. He has plus raw power and has always been known for his big time power. He would finish the season in 2nd place in home runs in the league with 20 of them. Those 20 home runs were the most hit by a Daytona player since 2018 when Ibandel Isabel set a Florida State League record with 35 of them and the league was High-A (they are now a Single-A league).
Let’s take a look at Ariel Almonte’s 460-foot home run.
The right fielder never even thought about moving other than to turn to watch it. The center fielder took a few steps towards right field before he also realized he should just admire that thing.
Here is the 424-foot home run by Connor Burns:
Burns actually had two 424-foot home runs. This one was from June. The other one came on August 6th, which happened to be his final game of the year with Daytona before being promoted up to join High-A Dayton.
And here is the 420-foot home run by Trey Faltine:
Some Fun Home Run Facts
- Daytona had 25 home runs go at least 400 feet.
- Of the 71 home runs we have data for that went over the fence the average distance was 391 feet.
- Of the 47 home runs we have exit velocity data for, Yerlin Confidan tops that list at 114.5 MPH. That home run only went 350 feet as it had a launch angle of just 16° and was never higher than 37 feet.
- While Connor Burns shows up three times on this list, none of those three home runs were the longest of the season for the catcher…. but you’ll have to wait to see more about that one.
- Ariel Almote’s 460-foot home run was the 4th longest on the farm that I’ve got solid data on.