Evan White Signs Six-Year Major League Contract
Former Kentucky All-American Evan White has signed a six-year Major League contract with the Seattle Mariners, the club announced on Monday. Reports have the guaranteed value at $24 million with three team option years at the end of the deal.
White, who reached Double-A in the Mariners’ organization last season, is signed through 2025 with the options running through 2028. He is expected to make his major league debut at some point during the 2020 regular season. He has been added to the team’s 40-man roster.
The Gahanna, Ohio native had a celebrated three-year career at Kentucky that saw him win a pair of Rawlings Gold Glove awards, earn All-America and All-Southeastern Conference honors and play for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team. He was selected 17th overall in the 2017 MLB Draft, making him the second-highest pick ever out of UK.
“Evan White stands out in so many ways,” Mariners Executive Vice President & General Manager of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto said in a team-issued statement. “We love the player and we love the person. The combination made it very easy to want to sign him for the better part of the next decade.”
White has been outstanding in his young professional career, batting .296 with 139 runs scored, 43 doubles, 10 triples, 32 home runs, 133 RBI, 87 walks, seven stolen bases, a .361 on-base percentage and a .471 slugging percentage (.832 OPS) in 230 games. He was one of three Mariners prospects to appear in the 2019 Sirius XM All-Star Futures Game, was named Texas League Player of the Month for the month of June and was named a Baseball America Double-A All-Star following the conclusion of the season.
White was considered one of the top talents in college baseball, an offensive force who also possesses elite defensive skills. He was a Golden Spikes Award semifinalist in 2017 and a three-time member of the All-SEC Defensive Team. He also helped guide the program to its first Super Regional appearance in 2017.
White’s career numbers rank amongst the most impressive in Kentucky history. He has 233 career hits, the fourth most on the school’s all-time list and the most for a player in his first three seasons. His career .356 batting average in fifth on the all-time UK list and the 51 doubles he has clubbed are the fourth most for a UK player.
In 2017, White returned from early groin and hamstring issues and immediately resumed terrorizing opposing pitchers. He hit a team-high .373, making him the first player since Josh Loggins in 1997-98 to lead the Wildcats in hitting in back-to-back seasons. White’s 24 doubles are the second most in a single-season, while adding a career-high 10 home runs to fuel a .627 slugging percentage.
For his career, White had 74 multi-hit games and two hitting streaks of at least 20 games. He recorded 21 games of at least three hits, never went three consecutive games without a hit and only twice had back-to-back games without a hit. Showing the ability to make adjustments, White also had 70 two-strike hits in his career.
During the summer of 2016, he was selected to play for USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team, starting 15 of 19 games in the club’s tour around the globe as both a first baseman and outfielder. He’s also a two-time SEC Academic Honor Roll member.
