It’s a disappointing setback for the 21-year-old, who was a first-round pick by the Marlins in the 2023 draft and has gone on to become one of the very best pitchers in the entire sport in the years since. After a strong season in the lower minors in 2024, White made a big impression in 21 starts during the 2025 campaign. He pitched well in High-A to open the season and quickly earned a promotion to Double-A, where he was utterly dominant with a 1.59 ERA in 45 1/3 innings of work across ten starts. He struck out a thrilling 39.3% of his opponents against a 12.6% run rate, giving him elite peripherals (2.24 FIP, 2.54 xFIP) to match his impressive run prevention numbers.
That performance at Double-A earned White a brief look at Triple-A toward the end of the season, as well as an invitation to big league camp this spring. White struggled in his spring debut, as he gave up two runs on two hits and a walk while striking out just one in his lone inning of work. That performance was certainly hampered by the oblique strain he now faced in that outing, and he’ll spend the remainder of Spring Training recovering from that issue in hopes of being healthy not long after minor league play begins. While White was in camp with the Marlins, he never had a particularly good chance of making the Opening Day roster, as Sandy Alcantara, Eury Perez, Max Meijer, Braxton Garrett, Chris PaddackAnd Janson Junk at the very least, they’re all ahead of him on the depth chart at this point.
That will certainly change at some point this season, provided White can stay healthy and build on last season. His two starts at Triple-A last year were a mixed bag; while he knocked out an absurd 42.5% of his opponents at that level, he also walked an unsustainable 25%. Of course, no significant conclusions can be drawn from a sample size of less than two innings, but White walked a total of 13.6% of his opponents in the minors last year and will certainly need to tighten his control at least somewhat before he can break into the majors and fulfill his promise as a potential future front-of-the-rotation arm for the Marlins.
During the season, White will be joined in the Triple-A rotation by a fellow top prospect Robby Snellingwhich split between Double- and Triple-A last year and will also appear on the big league radar this year. White and Snelling currently seemed blocked on paper in Miami, but a trade was made this offseason Edward Cabrera And Ryan Weers helped open up the game for them somewhat, and the checkered injury history of Garrett, Perez and even Alcantara suggests that innings should be available to them once they’re ready to take the next step to the majors.
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