Texas baseball adds highly touted Arizona State pitcher in transfer portal

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas baseball head coach Jim Schlossnagle made a move in the transfer portal to improve the pitching staff and grabbed one of the top emerging hurlers Monday.

Arizona State's Thomas Burns, the first freshman to start a season opener for the Sun Devils since 2006, said in a post on X that he's headed to Austin. Burns began the season as the ace of Willie Bloomquist's staff but sat out a portion of the season with shoulder tendonitis and a bicep injury eventually ended his season early. He has three seasons of eligibility remaining.

He appeared in six games, all starts, with a 1-1 record and 4.75 ERA in 30.1 innings pitched. He struck out 39 batters with 24 walks and held opponents to a .213 batting average.

Burns was ranked as the No. 2 pitcher out of Wisconsin by Prep Baseball Report before he spent his first collegiate season in Tempe. In his first start for the Sun Devils, he allowed one run on one hit and struck out seven in five innings against Santa Clara. He pitched four innings March 1 against Schlossnagle's Texas A&M squad, allowing four runs on three hits with six walks. A week later, he issued nine walks against Oregon in 5 1/3 innings pitched.

A handful of players from last year's team confirmed commitments to being with the Longhorns next season including outfielder Will Gasparino, catcher/designated hitter Kimble Schuessler, outfielder Max Belyeu, catcher Rylan Galvan and pitchers Ace Whitehead and Max Grubbs.