Tennessee standout reliever Burns enters portal

Tennessee pitcher Chase Burns, who was dominant out of the bullpen in the Vols’ run to the College World Series, has entered the transfer portal.

Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said Tuesday morning on Sports Talk 99.1 FM in Knoxville that “we’ve known that he would be gone for a while” and that while it’s always wise to be careful about what’s on Twitter that Burns’ exit “has been pretty straightforward.”

With a fastball that topped the 100 mph mark during the postseason, Burns will have plenty of suitors. Sources told ESPN that TCU will be one of the top schools on his list and that he might look to leave the SEC.

Burns was DIBaseball.com’s National Freshman of the Year in 2022 and was a first-team Preseason All-America selection in 2023. He spent his first season and a half as one of Tennessee’s weekend starters but, after a rocky start to the 2023 season, was moved to the bullpen.

That move by Vitello and pitching coach Frank Anderson turned around Burns’ season and helped turn around Tennessee’s season.

Burns, a 6-foot-4, 195-pound right-hander, started the season 2-3 with a 6.10 ERA. He was moved to the bullpen after allowing seven runs in 3⅔ innings against Florida. But during the postseason, Burns reemerged as one of college baseball’s superstars as a reliever. He shut down Clemson in an NCAA regional, Southern Miss in a super regional and then Stanford in the College World Series in Tennessee’s only win in Omaha. Burns was 1-0 in the NCAA tournament with a save. He struck out 22 batters in 16 innings and allowed just eight hits and one run.

Once he was in the bullpen, Burns held five opponents scoreless. After his bullpen debut against Arkansas, a series in which Tennessee was swept, the Vols swept Vanderbilt the next weekend, with Burns playing a key role in the Game 1 win. He pitched three scoreless innings to earn the 4-3 win in 12 innings. The Vols went on to win seven straight SEC games and closed the regular season by winning 11 of their last 15 SEC games. That’s after starting the season 5-10 in SEC play.

“This season went in a lot of different ways, and as coaches, we have to do what we think is best for the whole group and find a way and try to win games, and in the end, I think that worked fairly well,” Vitello said in his radio appearance.

Vitello added: “[Burns] is probably ranked No. 1 as a pitcher in his class at this point, but it’s a different day and age, so he’ll take those efforts somewhere else and we wish him the best.”