Breaking: Former Vols player signs a record signing bonus for the MLB draft

The Cincinnati Reds gave former Wake Forest and Tennessee pitcher Chase Burns a Major League Baseball record draft signing bonus. MLB.com senior writer and veteran draft analyst Jim Callis broke the initial news on the subject.

The Cincinnati Reds awarded former Wake Forest and Tennessee pitcher Chase Burns a Major League Baseball record $9.25 million draft signing bonus. MLB.com senior writer and veteran draft analyst Jim Callis broke the initial news on the subject.

Burns signed for more than $500,000 less than the $9,785,000 slot value, but his $9.25 million bonus was still an all-time record — and more than the $8.95 bonus that Sunday’s No. 1 overall pick Travis Bazzana received from the Cleveland Guardians on Friday. Burns was chosen by the Reds with the No. 2 overall pick pick in the first round of the MLB draft on Sunday.

Burns, a native of the Nashville region, played for the Vols in 2022 and 2023 before transferring to Wake Forest for his last and third season in college.

At Beech High School in Murfreesboro, the 6-foot-3, 210-pound Burns was a standout athlete, and many people were shocked that he was able to attend college at all. But he was drafted late in 2021 due to concerns about his signing-bonus demands, and as a freshman in 2022, he rapidly established himself as a key member of the Tennessee staff.

As a freshman, Burns made 17 appearances, 14 of which were starts. He ended the season with an 8-2 record, 2.91 ERA, and 1.12 WHIP. Early in his sophomore season, he was far from optimal, but he thrived out of the bullpen and was instrumental in Tennessee’s 2023 College World Series run. With eight starts and eight appearances toward the end of the season, his 5-3 record and 4.63 ERA didn’t fully capture the impact he had toward the end of the campaign. In the College World Series versus Stanford, Burns came out of the bullpen and gave an unforgettable performance, striking out nine in six scoreless innings as Tennessee won the elimination game.

He became the first relief pitcher to pitch six or more scoreless innings in a CWS game since 1997 on that day in Omaha. In the Hattiesburg Super Regional versus Southern Miss, he also delivered 2.2 brilliant innings out of the bullpen to propel the Vols back to the College World Series. In 6.1 innings out of the pen the week before, he gave up just one run in a victory over Clemson in the Clemson Regional.

Burns’s dissatisfaction with his shift to the bullpen was well-known to many inside and surrounding the program, even though it had a positive impact on both Burns’s and Tennessee’s season. In 2024, Burns most likely would have rejoined the starting lineup as well. However, ties were severed, and the star right-hander signed a commitment to Wake Forest by entering his name in the transfer portal.

From an individual standpoint, Burns’s season with the Demon Deacons went extremely well. With a career-high 100 innings pitched and a 2.88 ERA, he was still among the best pitchers in college baseball. As a team, Wake’s plans didn’t work out as expected. When Burns did not throw, the nation’s top preseason team struggled much too frequently, and they were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament in the Regional round.

However, this did not affect Burns’s standing as a potential. With 408 strikeouts in 252.1 innings throughout his college career, he knew going into the draft that his name would be among the first off the board.

The season began with ace pitcher AJ Russell hurting early and eventually being shut down, so Tennessee had to come up with a different pitching strategy than usual. Nevertheless, it worked out for the Vols, who finished near the top of the nation in ERA and won the SEC, SEC Tournament, and national championship.

This week’s draft had eight current Tennessee players who were chosen, while Zander Sechrist (of the Minnesota Twins), the ninth pick, signed a contract with a club right away. A few players from Tennessee were also chosen, but Tennessee thinks some of those players will still be able to attend, thus the Vols were able to retain a highly anticipated class for the upcoming year.