Tony Vitello clears the air about Chase Burns' decision to enter NCAA transfer portal

Tennessee head baseball coach Tony Vitello spoke with 99.1 The Sports Animal in Tennessee shortly after news broke Tuesday morning that star pitcher Chase Burns was entering the transfer portal.

Vitello told 99.1 that he wasn’t caught off guard by the move but was instead expecting it to happen. Burns is one of multiple Vols players to enter the transfer portal since Tennessee’s season ended in Omaha earlier this month.

“Yea, there is a lot going on [with the transfer portal], and that one you asked about is a good case of it’s actually pretty straightforward,” Tony Vitello said of Chase Burns. “We’ve kind of known that he would be gone for a while. But a good case to be careful about what you read on Twitter, because like I said, that’s been pretty straightforward.”

Burns finished the year 5-3 with a 4.25 ERA. He struck out 114 batters in 72 innings pitched.

The righty was inconsistent as a starter this year and was eventually moved to the bullpen. At one point he had four consecutive starts in SEC play where he allowed at least five runs.

Burns was much better once he was moved to the pen, including at the College World Series where he struck out nine batters in six scoreless innings of relief work against Stanford. However, it seems that being moved to the bullpen earlier in the year played a role in his decision to leave.

“You know, this season went in a lot of different ways. And as coaches, we’ve got to do what we think is best for the whole group and find a way to try and win games,” Vitello said.

“And in the end, I think that worked out fairly well. But for his case, he’s going to take his efforts somewhere else. It’s been a deal where he’s done more than a lot for the program, not just last year, and of course this year, too. And in the course of this year he became the No. 1 popular pitcher, maybe in the country. But definitely in his class. And 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 on somewhere else and we wish him the best.”

Burns was ranked as the No. 17 overall player in the country and the top player in Tennessee when he signed with the Vols. He has a fastball that consistently reaches 100 miles per hour.

As a freshman in 2022, Burns was 8-2 with a 2.91 ERA. He struck out 103 batters in 80 1/3 innings pitched.