You’ll have to forgive us for being slow on the uptake, but this past Tuesday was an important anniversary for the Seattle Mariners. It marked six years since they signed Evan White to a six-year, $24 million contract, which should make November 25, 2019 a date that lives in infamy.
The contract was a big risk, as White was only the fourth player to sign a long-term deal before making his major league debut. Yet beyond being an obvious show of faith in White himself, it was also a show of good faith to a fanbase that had just been forced to sit through a 94-loss season.
The Mariners learned a valuable lesson with their disastrous dice-roll on Evan White’s contract
To be sure, there was clearly a lot of work to do before the Mariners could field a contending team again. Yet the White extension effectively acted as an early glimpse of what the Mariners were building toward. He was to be the first, yet hardly the last or the best graduate from a system that also included the likes of Jarred Kelenic, Julio Rodríguez, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby and Cal Raleigh.
The Mariners may have chosen White for an early extension because he offered the safest bet to succeed in the majors. He figured to be a Gold Glove-caliber first baseman, if nothing else, and his bat had played just fine with Double-A Arkansas during the 2019 season. He got on base at a .350 clip and hit 18 home runs in 92 games.
Unfortunately, there’s just no way to sugarcoat what happened next.
Though White did win a Gold Glove after his rookie season in 2020, it was a minor consolation prize for what was otherwise a forgettable year. Even setting aside the fact that 2020 was the COVID-shortened season, he slashed only .176/.252/.346 with a 41.6 strikeout percentage.
White’s pro career since then has consisted of just 66 games by way of injuries, most notably hip and core issues that required surgeries. He last played in the Los Angeles Angels system in 2024 before sitting out 2025, which was the final year of his contract.
In all, White’s extension was a swing and a miss, which is unfortunately very much in theme with contracts for players who have yet to debut in the majors. Here’s the complete list:
- Jackson Chourio, Milwaukee Brewers: 8 years, $82 million
- Luis Robert Jr., Chicago White Sox: 6 years, $50 million
- Eloy Jiménez, Chicago White Sox: 6 years, $43 million
- Colt Keith, Detroit Tigers: 6 years, $28.6 million
- Scott Kingery, Philadelphia Phillies: 6 years, $24 million
- Evan White, Seattle Mariners: 6 years, $24 million
- Jon Singleton, Houston Astros: 5 years, $10 million
The only one of these that looks like a good investment is Chourio’s deal, which has thus far paid for a pair of 20-20 seasons and 6.0 total rWAR. For the most part, the Mariners’ whiff on White is part of a rich tapestry of failure.
It could have been worse. Even after White’s flop in 2020, the Mariners still tried to do a pre-debut extension with Kelenic. That effort infamously resulted in a mess, but it didn’t take long for it to resemble a dodged bullet for the Mariners. They gave up on both White and Kelenic in the same trade in December of 2023, when they effectively dumped them on the Atlanta Braves.
All of this would make for solid hate-watch TV ifNetflix ever decided to adapt the story for a series, but there’s also a valuable lesson to be learned here: It’s really, really OK to wait and see if guys can become major league stars before paying them like they are.
The Mariners seem to have gotten the gist. Though they were aggressive in promoting him to the majors in 2022, they let Rodríguez establish himself as a star before they locked him up with a massive, yet oddly team-friendly contract. They waited even longer to extend Raleigh, whose $105 million deal now looks like one of the great steals in all of sports after his 60-homer breakout.
Even so, there is pressure on the Mariners to keep getting the gist. They’re staring down a bumper crop of top prospects who could make their debuts in 2026, including Colt Emerson. He’s already a candidate to crack the Opening Day roster, and the team fully expects him to be a star. Even if pre-debut contracts are rare, it’s guys like that who tend to get them.
Nobody around here is rooting against Emerson, yet the Mariners would be wise to heed the lesson they learned with White and remember that patience is very much a virtue in these cases.
