Thomas White’s talent is no secret.
The 6-foot-5 lefty from Rowley was topping 90 mph on the radar gun.
At 14 years old.
Everything changed after that. and since arriving at Phillips Andover he’s ranked among the nation’s top high school pitchers.
Yet for all of his ability and hype among MLB teams, the pandemic has largely kept White out of the public eye, so unless you’re a well-connected scout or a hardcore summer baseball fanatic chances are you’ve never actually seen him pitch for yourself.
That changes this spring, and now the world is about to see what White can really do.
After two seasons disrupted by the pandemic, White is about to embark on his first normal season of high school baseball. Unable to pitch as a freshman and limited to just 16.2 innings with no spectators allowed as a sophomore, White’s junior season will mark the first time local fans and much of the baseball community will get a chance to see the top MLB Draft prospect in action.
It will be a long overdue coming-out party for a player already considered one of the best high school baseball prospects to ever come out of Massachusetts, kickstarting a journey most expect will eventually lead to a multi-million dollar payday and potentially big league stardom.
Building a big league body
Entering his junior year White is ranked No. 3 nationally in the Class of 2023 by Perfect Game and No. 4 by Baseball America, both of which also have him as the top pitching prospect in his class. Those accolades stem in large part thanks to his dominance on the summer baseball circuit, where White has wowed talent evaluators with his high-90s velocity and an impressive array of off-speed pitches.
White is by nearly all measures the complete package, but if there was anywhere you could point as an area for improvement last summer it was that he was still a bit skinny. So upon his return to Phillips Andover in the fall he dedicated himself to the weight room — with impressive results.
“I’m up close to 20 pounds at this point,” White said, adding that he’s now 210 pounds, up from around 190 last summer. “So a lot of weight training, throwing, flat grounds, bullpens, and obviously I hit too.”
“He looks like an action figure!” said Phillips Andover head baseball coach Kevin Graber. “He’s not lying, he’s put on some good size, but functional size. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, he lives in our fitness center, he’s really dedicated to it.”
In addition to his weight room routine, White has continued working with longtime pitching coach Rusty Tucker, the former Gloucester High All-Scholastic and owner of Legends Baseball, as well as Steve Santucci, a former minor league outfielder and the father of White’s ex-Phillips teammate and current Duke University freshman Jonathan Santucci.
Among his offseason projects, White said he’s combined his curveball and slider into a single off-speed weapon that should better fit his arm angle, and he’s also worked on fine tuning his other pitches.
“The biggest difference I’d say is with my changeup,” White said. “Towards the end of last year I really found the grip with my changeup so I’ve worked on developing that over the offseason. The changeup is going to be the biggest difference for me this year.”
Keeping ahead of the hype
With all the attention about to come his way, those close to White say one of their biggest concerns is that it could all become too much. After a sophomore year where not even parents were allowed to attend Phillips’ games, Graber said this year he expects White’s starts could take on a circus-like atmosphere with all of the college and professional scouts expected to attend.
“The main thing is I never want Thomas to feel overwhelmed by it all,” Graber said. “I just want him to be able to be a kid and have fun and just focus on pitching and focus on the quality of the pitch at hand, rather than all the noise that can happen around a kid with his ability.”
Beyond the prospect that White could become a top pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, he also remains by far the highest ranked high school player in his class yet to make a college commitment. While White is known to be drawing interest from many of the nation’s top college programs, he and his family have remained tight lipped on which schools he’s seriously considering.
But all of that is still in the future, White said, and right now he’s most excited to get to compete for an actual championship for the first time in his high school career.
The plan early on is for White to slowly ramp up, and last week when Phillips Andover traveled to Florida for its annual spring break trip Graber tried to keep the heat off of him by limiting his innings and potential exposure. He made two brief appearances during the trip, pitching a scoreless inning against Team Ontario of Canada in what Graber described as an unannounced “sneak attack,” and then on the last day of the trip he threw two scoreless innings against Connecticut prep powerhouse Avon Old Farms.
“The goal was to get Thomas to Florida with his arm screaming at him to get on the mound, and I think that was accomplished,” Graber said. “Yet in Florida we were still pretty conservative, what we predetermined was that he was going to have an outing on our first day and a pitching outing on his last day, and we were going to be really conservative with how many pitches he threw.”
But once Phillips’ regular season begins White should see his workload steadily increase, and before long he’ll have a chance to show off the stuff that could one day land him on a major league roster.
“If you look at him from the perspective of a pro scout or someone who evaluates a kid’s potential, I’m not sure what else you could want,” Graber said. “In terms of physicality, in terms of how the ball comes out of his hand, in terms of maturity, in terms of compete, in terms of personal qualities and how he takes care of business in the classroom, he’s just a dream kid.
“I’m so privileged that I get to be around him,” Graber added. “Everything I had hoped for when he was a not so little eighth grader considering options for ninth grade, it’s all come true.”
Email: mcerullo@northofboston.com. Twitter: @MacCerullo.