Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Lonnie White Jr. Hits His First Career Home Run

Pittsburgh Pirates outfield prospect Lonnie White Jr. continued the strong start to his professional career on Saturday afternoon when he hit his first professional home run

Lonnie White Jr. was considered one of the top draft prospects in the 2021 MLB Draft and could prove to be a steal of a selection by the Pittsburgh Pirates. According to MLB Pipeline, White Jr. was rated the number 72nd draft prospect. Baseball America even rated him higher as the 32nd best draft prospect on the board.

The Pittsburgh Pirates ended up drafting him 64th overall. This was already after drafting two high quality draft prospects. Those two picks of course were Henry Davis and Anthony Solometo. White Jr.’s scouting grades according MLB Pipeline were fairly impressive as well. He has a 45 hit tool, 50 power, 70 run, 50 arm and a 60 fielding, which gave him an overall future value of 50.

White Jr. originally committed to play baseball at Clemson University. He then decided to change paths and play college football. He was 4-star recruit according to Rivals and committed to play wide receiver for Penn State. It was believed that he was hesitant on which sport he would end up choosing once drafted. This might have hurt his draft stock because it seemed he wanted to choose football over baseball. Thankfully he didn’t and decided to sign with the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 26th of this year. His signing bonus with the Pirates was for 1.5 million dollars.

On August 19th White. Jr was assigned to the FCL Pirates Black where he made his first pro debut. It didn’t take long for him to adjust to professional pitching. In his first game he was 2-2 with 2 doubles.

White Jr. is listed at 6’3” 212 pounds and is only 18-years-old. He is a very gifted athlete and I believe he could be a special talent once he develops and only focuses on baseball. On September 3rd, he hit his first professional home run.

This kid could be the steal in the draft just because of the potential power and speed he has. MLB Pipeline already has him rated as the #11 prospect in the Pirate farm system. That should be a telling sign just because of his age and how deep the farm currently is. I’m very excited to see his development in the next couple of years and would love to see him with Bradenton to start the 2022 minor league season.