Chase Burns

After making tremendous strides forward with his strength and velocity over the last two years, Burns now has some of the best pure stuff in the 2021 high school pitching class. Last summer he showed one of the better fastballs of the group, running his heater up to 100 mph and consistently getting into the upper 90s. Listed at 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, Burns attacks hitters downhill out of a high, three-quarter arm slot and his fastball has shown impressive riding life. Burns has two breaking balls—one is a downer curveball that has shown average potential and the other is a more promising mid-to-upper-80s slider with sweeping action that shows hard tilt and bite at its best. Scouts seem to prefer the harder breaking ball and have given it future plus grades, while evaluators are more mixed on Burns’ changeup. Burns brings some reliever risk to the table because of his history of throwing scattered strikes, and given his long arm action that leads to inconsistencies with the timing in his delivery and with the consistency of his secondary offerings. Burns has shown an ability to pitch with lower velocity and improve the quality of his control, but scouts think he still needs to learn how to control his body, figure out his wingspan and fine tune some of the details of his mechanics to get the most out of his top-end stuff (which is exceptional) with more consistency. Burns is a Tennessee commit, but could get drafted among the top-two rounds.