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

Evan White’s worst baseball for the Seattle Mariners is now behind him

Evan White began his 2020 on a high note. It was quite obvious to fans and the Seattle Mariners personnel alike that the first base spot was his to lose. White had historically cashed in before even stepping foot on a Major League diamond, signing a 6 year/$24M guaranteed deal, with club options for 2026, 2027, and 2028.

He entered the 2020 Spring Training at age 23, and essentially as the unquestioned first baseman for the Mariners. White saw success when seeing a majority of MLB-quality arms for the very first time.

When Spring Training was abruptly put on hold, White was 8-for-24 with three double and three RBI’s. That added up to a .829 OPS as well. It seemed as if the jump from Arkansas was not going to come with many growing pains for Evan White, as he also was flashing serious leather.

https://twitter.com/Mariners/status/1231681329634263040

Evan, however, struggled out of the gates. Like many players across the league, there simply were not enough games in 2020 for him to get settled in and turn his slow start around.

Overall, his rookie season was obviously less than ideal, but there was an abundance of factors that potentially led to White’s subpar numbers, beginning with a pandemic that wiped out nearly two-thirds of the standard schedule size.

Through the storm, White flashed plenty of reasons for optimism heading into his sophomore campaign. Here are three reasons why Evan White’s rookie season will be an outlier when his playing days are over.

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.

https://twitter.com/MLBPipeline/status/1287453512029200385?s=20

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.

Reason No. 2: – Evan White is now established as the best defensive first baseman in baseball, not just the Seattle Mariners

Coming into the show he was heralded as one of the top defensive prospects in baseball, and last season Evan White led all Major League first baseman in the majority of defensive categories.

https://twitter.com/Mariners/status/1292307520883589121?s=20

Anthony Rizzo topped a few categories as well, and rightfully so, as he is four-time Gold Glover himself. But among American League first baseman in 2020, Evan White led essentially every single category.

What this means for Evan White is that he should be a regular for the Gold Glove Award at first base in the American League for years to come. Defense is hard and nobody should be considered a pencil-in for that award, but White’s trajectory has him as close to that as it gets.

This is something that should excite Mariner fans because this type of national recognition is not something that many rookies receive and will instill a sense of confidence and pride within Evan White.

To give you an idea of the type of rookie season that White had defensively, here are a few of the notable stats in which he paced all first basemen last year; Defensive runs saved (+7),  revised zone rating (.911), out of zone plays made (11), and first baseman scoops (7).