Indians Top 50: #10 Alex White

Alex White - Right-handed Pitcher
Born: 08/29/1988 - Height: 6'3" - Weight: 195 - Bats: Right - Throws: Right

Year	Age	Team	Lvl	W	L	ERA	G	GS	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	AVG	BB/9	K/9	WHIP
2009	20	DNP	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

History:  White was selected by the Indians in the 1^st round of the 2009 Draft out of the University of North Carolina.  He signed right at the deadline on August 17^th for $2.25 million.  He was the Atlantic Coast Conference Pitcher of the Year in 2008.  He is from Greenville, NC which is about 20 minutes from the Indians High-A Kinston affiliate.

Strengths & Opportunities:  White is a big, strong, athletic right-handed pitcher with three power pitches that all project as legitimate above average major league pitches.  His stuff is electric, fronted by a plus-plus fastball that has good life and sits at 92-95 MPH and has touched 97 MPH.  His fastball comes out of his hand free and easy and has good, late heavy sink to it.  He has also shown an ability to maintain his velocity deep into games, and he has the arm strength to add more velocity.  He features two different secondary pitches, a splitter and slider that are both swing-and-miss type pitches.  He recently added the splitter to his repertoire as in high school he was more of a power sinker-slider pitcher, and has really improved it to where it is now his best secondary pitch and his most effective pitch against left-handed hitters.  The splitter has good late fade, and there is no question it is a weapon for him.  His slider sits at 82-86 MPH and has good late break to it, and flashes plus ability already with good tilt and depth when he is on with the pitch.

At 6'2" 195 pounds, White has very good size and profiles as a strong, durable workhorse kind of pitcher.  He is a plus-plus makeup guy who is very intelligent, coachable, grounded, and strong in his values.  He has a good feel for pitching, and a great track record of being able to pitch when under pressure.  He is extremely athletic, which helps him field his position well and do a good job of repeating his delivery.  He is a competitor who is a bulldog on the mound that goes right after hitters.

White has unbelievable makeup and composure, which to go along with his mid-90s fastball, devastating splitter, and wipeout slider is why the Indians feel he has a chance to be successful power backend reliever down the road.  He has the makeup and mentality to pitch out of the bullpen as he showed some versatility on the mound in college where he pitched effectively in both the starting rotation and bullpen.  The Indians believe his track would be shortened if he were put him in a bullpen role, and that his strike throwing ability and stuff would play up in the role.  For now he will pitch out of the starting rotation and the plan is to develop him into a starter, but at the moment the bullpen certainly seems like his best long term fit.  By starting him he can get regular work in games and in side sessions, and have more opportunities to be exposed to various game situations and to develop all of his pitches regularly in an outing.  Also, with three pitches of his quality, you have to start him as the bullpen should only be as a fallback option if he fails as a starter.

The Indians interest in White goes all the way back to when he was in high school as they scouted him heavily three years ago and their scout Bob Mayer got to know him well, but they were unable to draft him.  They watched him the last three years at North Carolina, and he was one of their main targets since the beginning of last season in preparation for last year's draft. Upon drafting him last year, there was no immediate need to get him to sign since he had accrued so many innings already that year at North Carolina and likely would have only made a handful of appearances in late August had he signed earlier.  He joined up with Double-A Akron late in the season for three weeks as part of a return to throw program to build his arm strength back up so he could go to Instructional League in the fall to get acquainted with the organization and begin his first exposure to pro ball.  While with Akron, he got a crash course on the organizational philosophies, minor league lifestyle, coaching, facilities, and more.  He went out to Instructional League and pitched well, and his best outing was his final outing there in mid-October when he was stretched out to five innings and allowed no earned runs on five hits, no walks, and had three strikeouts and hit 94 MPH on the gun.

One of the big concerns last year with White was a drop in velocity, which is a big reason he slid out of the top five picks in the draft and ultimately to the Indians.  There were no reported injuries or any disclosures of shoulder tendonitis, but combined with the fact he had an over-reliance on his secondary stuff and the velocity of his fastball dipped, something was not right and it was a red flag for teams.  The Indians believe the velocity issues were mechanical in nature and are fixable with coaching, and that a full offseason of rest should bring the life back to his arm.  The key pitch in his arsenal is his slider as it is the one pitch that lacks consistency, and without it makes his fastball-splitter mix more conducive to the bullpen.  He needs more consistent command of it in the zone as in college the pitch regularly ended up out of the zone, which will fool college level hitters but not get pro hitters to bite.  In addition to the velocity and slider issues, the other big concern is his inconsistent command and performance.  He has problems controlling the strike zone, and lacks consistent focus where at times he can lose it for an inning and get knocked around.  At Instructional League last fall the Indians got to work on fixing some of his issues, mainly getting him to work on repeating and smoothing out his delivery and try to throw all of his pitches for strikes to both sides of the plate.

Outlook:  The addition of White to the Indians farm system adds yet another high level power-armed pitching prospect that they did not have at this time last year.  With the infusion of so much talent via trades last July and now White, the Indians upper level pitching landscape has changed dramatically in just a short amount of time.  There is no rush to get him to the big leagues considering the Indians are retooling for contention in 2011, but he is an advanced pitcher and could come quick and should finish the year at Double-A Akron, and potentially Triple-A Columbus depending on his progress.  If all goes well, his ETA in Cleveland should be sometime late-2011.  When spring rolls around and the 2010 season gets underway, he will be in big league camp during spring training before going to minor league camp about halfway through, and is expected to be in the High-A Kinston starting rotation at the outset of the season.

Photo courtesy of Carl Kline

(no site stat pages for White since he has not pitched professionally yet)

Alex White Pitching:

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