PEORIA, Ariz. — Evan White likes to look at the hidden blessings of the two-year ordeal that brought his promising Mariners’ career to a screeching halt. Like being able to be there for the birth of his son, Kade, last August. It’s a healthy way to process a miserable stretch of health issues.
But the reality is that from a baseball standpoint, it’s been nothing short of an ongoing nightmare. The upward trajectory of the early portion of White’s career — first-round Mariners’ draft pick in 2017, signed to a six-year contract in November of 2019, the M’s opening-day first baseman in 2020 and ’21, Gold Glove winner as a rookie — exploded into impending disaster on May 13, 2021, a mere 38 games into the Mariners’ season.
Diving for a ball in Minnesota, White suffered a left hip flexor strain. It didn’t appear to be a particularly serious injury, but he hasn’t been back in a major league game since. White has barely played in the minors, in fact, as the hip injury morphed into two surgeries and a series of setbacks that left him extremely frustrated — and has transformed White’s status from a centerpiece of the Mariners’ rebuild to a guy battling to regain a spot on their depth chart.
The good news is that White has been one of the feel-good stories of the early part of Mariners’ camp. Two months shy of his 27th birthday, he hopes his health problems are finally behind him.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt this good,” White said — and it shows. White has impressed the Mariners with his fitness and mobility, as he endeavors to remind the M’s why they felt comfortable committing $24 million to a guy who had never played above the Class AA level.
“It’s the best we’ve seen him in a long time,’’ Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “He has gone through a lot in the last couple of years, just having a hard time staying on the field. He looks completely healthy. He looks good in the batter’s box.”
It would be a stretch to envision White making the team out of camp barring an injury to Ty France, who usurped White as the regular first baseman. Not after playing just 32 minor league games over the past two seasons, and struggling with major league pitching even before the injuries (a .165 career average with 115 strikeouts in 279 at-bats).
But there is now a legitimate hope that White can help them at the major league level this season, probably after re-establishing himself at Tacoma.
“He needs to play baseball. I said to our coaches, I believe at some point this year, Evan will help us. He’s going to impact us,’’ Servais said. “Certainly, Ty France has first base locked down right now. But things happen throughout the course of the year. (White) just needs to go play baseball, put himself kind of back on the map again, and the only way he can do that is be available. Go out there and play.”
White believes he is on the verge of doing that because of treatment he received this offseason with a pelvic floor specialist in Scottsdale, Dr. Tonya L. Bunner. The hope is that they were able to address the root of his ongoing problems, which he said date back to his teenage years.
“It was a lot of unfolding, a lot of unpacking compensation patterns throughout the years,’’ he said.
White had hip surgery in July of 2021 and sports hernia surgery last March after injuring himself in spring camp. He had three separate rehab stints at Tacoma last year that each had to be cut short because of hip pain. The last one came after he had a torrid month of August (a .288/.373/.731 slash line in 15 games with six homers, five double and six walks). White seemed on a path for a September call-up and perhaps a playoff roster spot until his core issues re-emerged. At one point, White said, he couldn’t pick his leg up.
“Not exactly where I want to be to be an elite baseball player. It was incredibly frustrating,’’ White said. “You’re thinking you’re doing everything you can to get back on the field. But as soon as you get back on the field, you get that same stabbing pain in the exact same spot. It’s like, ‘What’s wrong with me?'”
That question was hopefully answered with some finality this winter. White calls Dr. Bunner “a career saver” and says she worked in conjunction with John Walker, the Mariners’ Director of Rehabilitation and Return to Play, to formulate a course of action. White said her treatment involved exercises and what he called “needling” to address the inflammation in his pelvic wall.
“There’s a muscle in my pelvic floor that was the biggest issue,’’ he said. “If you can’t stabilize at the very base of it, it’s kind of tough. You can give me all the stabilization exercises you want, but if I can’t do it from the very inner parts of me, it’s tough to do. I’ve had injuries on that side since I was probably 14 years old. I had to make sure everything was firing, firing the right patterns.”
White says he’s learned multitudes about his body and swing through the process that will continue to pay dividends. He became encouraged throughout the winter when he kept increasing his workload without the same sort of setbacks that plagued him last year.
“The whole offseason, I felt I was taking steps forward, which was exciting,’’ he said. “It wasn’t to the point I’d start picking up and then have to shut back down because I didn’t feel too good, like the rehab assignments and stuff.”
White echoed Servais’s words: “I just want to play. Be on the field.”
While there has been speculation White could be tried in the outfield, Servais said he’ll remain at first base, at least early in camp.
“We all know he’s an awesome defender. Let’s get him in his happy zone, his comfort zone at first base. And then let’s see where it goes from there.”
That could indeed eventually mean time in the outfield. White says he’s willing to do so if it provides an accelerated path to major league playing time.
“I definitely feel way more comfortable at first just because it’s something I’ve done for so long,’’ he said. “If I had my preference it’d be at first. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to help out.”
By virtue of his long-term contract, the Mariners according to Sportrac will be paying White $3 million this year, $7 million in 2024 and $8 million in 2025, with club options for $10 million in 2026, $11 million in 2027 and $12 million in 2028.
It was a calculated risk on the M’s part that would have been a bargain if White had ascended on the path they forecast. So far it hasn’t worked out for the ballclub, but both parties hope this is the year a healthy White re-emerges as an impact player. Either way, White says, “I can have peace knowing that I did everything I could to be the best I could and hopefully help this team as much as I can.”
Meanwhile, his forced hiatus has reminded White how much he misses the game on the field and the camaraderie in the clubhouse.
“A lot of guys realize that towards the end of their career,” he said. “But I was 24, 25, and all of a sudden, I hadn’t played in two years. It’s not something you thought was going to get taken away from you, but it did. So I’m going to try to enjoy every single day and not take anything for granted.”
Call it another hidden blessing.
