Seattle Mariners: 3 Reasons Why Evan White’s Rookie Season was a Fluke

Reason No. 1 – When Evan White made contact in 2020, he hit the ball hard extremely often

To take a deep dive into Evan White’s rookie season, you must look beyond the everyday stats. Especially in a pandemic-shortened 60-game season. Out of all qualified batters in 2020, Evan White’s 52.5% hard-hit rate ranked 13th in all of baseball.

Every batter who checked in ahead of White would have very likely been an All-Star in 2020 had there been a game, outside of the human tank known as Miguel Sano and Christian Yelich, the latter of which having an incredibly uncharacteristic 60 games last year. That alone should tell you something.

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White was not only in elite company with his hard-hit rate in 2020 but with his barrel percentage as well. He ranked third among all qualified first-baseman, with a 14.1% barrel percentage.

Who were the only two first-baseman to barrel up baseballs more often than White in his rookie year? That would be none other than both of Major League Baseball’s Most Valuable Players in 2020.

Indeed the only two first-baseman with a higher barrel percentage in 2020 were the two best hitters in baseball for 2020, José Abreu and Freddie Freeman. The fact that White was one of Statcast’s favorite hitters last year, despite struggling to adjust to Major League sequencing at the same time, should tell you all you need to know.