Tyler White

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Note: This page is for infielder Tyler White who made his major league debut in 2016; for others with the same name, click here.

Brian Tyler White

BR page

Biographical Information[edit]

Infielder Tyler White made his major league debut on opening day in 2016.

White hit .407 in high school and was All-State as a senior. As a college freshman, he batted .288/.359/.387 with 36 RBI in 59 games. As a sophomore, he remained steady at .289/.391/.371 and fielded .996. He made good progress as a junior - .354/.445/.443, 41 R in 56 G. He was 3rd in the Southern Conference in OBP and 6th in average. His senior year, he was better yet, hitting .363/.423/.661 with 27 doubles, 16 home runs, 52 runs and 66 RBI in 59 games - he had only six homers in his first three years of college. He was all over the Southern Conference leaderboard: runs (tied for 9th), hits (91, 2nd, 6 behind Aaron Attaway), doubles (1st), homers (2nd, 5 behind Ryan Kinsella), RBI (3rd) and total bases (166, 2nd, 2 behind Kinsella). He was All-Conference at third base and was named Conference Player of the Year by the media. He set a school record for doubles in a season and tied for second in NCAA Division I, one behind Jimmy Yezzo. He also tied for 9th in Division I in dingers and tied Zane Evans and Daniel Palka for 15th in RBI. He was named third-team All-American by Collegiate Baseball.

The Houston Astros picked him in the 33rd round of the 2013 amateur draft. The scout was Tim Bittner. He quickly climbed the ladder, going from the GCL Astros (.365/.474/.556, 15 RBI in 18 G) to the Greeneville Astros (.344/.411/.484 in 18 G) to the Tri-City ValleyCats (.286/.362/.384, 25 RBI in 28 G) for a .322/.406/.456 composite line his first summer as a pro. He continued his rise in 2014, appearing for the Quad Cities River Bandits (.305/.414/.485 in 71 G) and Lancaster JetHawks (.267/.403/.527 in 43 G), with a combined 33 doubles, 15 homers and 63 walks. He was 4th in the Astros chain in doubles, 10th in RBI, 6th in walks and second in OBP (behind Tony Kemp).

White kept up his ascent in 2015, doing well with the Corpus Christi Hooks (.284/.415/.426 in 59 G) and the Fresno Grizzlies (.362/.467/.559, 59 RBI in 57 G in his first aste of AAA). For the ear, he had 99 RBI, 84 walks and a .325/.442/.496 line. He was 4th in the Astros farm chain in RBI (between J.D. Davis and Derek Fisher), 3rd in walks (behind James Ritchie and A.J. Reed), second to Reed in average and first in OBP (.010 over Reed). In the winter of 2015-2016, he starred for the Estrellas Orientales (literally, starring for the Stars), hitting .297/.421/.494 with 29 runs, 31 RBI and 32 walks in 44 games. He led the Dominican League in runs (one over Joey Rickard), home runs (7, one over Mel Rojas Jr. and Rickard), walks (10 over Matt Joyce), OBP (.015 over Hanser Alberto), slugging (.028 over Steven Moya) and OPS (60 over Alberto) and also tied Wilin Rosario for 7th in average and tied Audy Ciriaco for 5th in doubles (10) and was second in RBI (one behind Rickard). He was MVP of the Dominican League, the first American to win since Eric Byrnes 14 years earlier.

Making the Astros out of spring training in 2016, he pinch-hit for Preston Tucker in the 7th inning on Opening Day, April 5th with a 2-2 tie against the New York Yankees. He singled off Chasen Shreve but was stranded. Staying in the game at DH, he came up again in the 8th, now with a 5-2 lead, and was hit by a pitch from Johnny Barbato. He then set a team record by getting 9 hits in his first four games, and tied another record with 7 RBIs over the same span. His best game came on April 9th against the Milwaukee Brewers, when he went 3 for 4 with a double and a three-run homer in a 6-4 loss. Only three other major league players had gotten 9 hits in their first four games since 2000: Ian Desmond, Josmil Pinto and Junior Lake. He played 86 games for Houston that season, cooling down to a .216 average with 8 homers and 28 RBIs. He also played 44 games in AAA with Fresno, where he hit .241 with 13 homers and 49 RBIs. He started 2017 back at Fresno and with Houston getting off to a tremendous start, he spent the entire first half there as there was no need for his services in the majors. In 91 games, he hit .299 with 19 homers and 69 RBIs. He was called up on July 23rd, after Houston had been forced to place both SS Carlos Correa and his replacement, 3B Colin Moran, on the DL in a span of three days. The plan was to have him play some first base while 1B Yuli Gurriel would slide over to third base and Alex Bregman playing SS, with Marwin Gonzalez helping out at all three positions as well.

Notable Achievements[edit]

  • Won one World Series with the Houston Astros in 2017 (he did not play in the World Series)

Sources[edit]

Further Reading[edit]

  • Brian McTaggart: "White has sights set on cracking 25-man roster: Infielder made strides in 2017, but Astros boast strong depth", mlb.com, January 30, 2018. [1]

Related Sites[edit]

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