Matt White (minor league pitcher)

White attended Waynesboro Area High School from 1993 to 1996^[1] where he played four varsity sports and had a 0.79 earned run average as a baseball player.^[2] During his senior year he posted a 10–1 record with an 0.63 ERA, allowing 21 hits and 37 baserunners.^[3] Following the season he was named the high school baseball player of the year by USA Today,^[4] Baseball America, the National High School Baseball Coaches Association^[2] and Gatorade.^[5][6][7]

After initially planning to attend Georgia Tech,^[8] White was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the 1996 amateur draft,^[9] but his agent Scott Boras found a long-ignored provision in MLB's Collective Bargaining Agreement that allowed White to become a free agent after the Giants failed to offer him a written contract in the required 15-day time allotted.^[2][10] He received a $10.2 million signing bonus (equivalent to $20.9 million in 2025) in 1996 with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.^[11][12] It was the largest bonus ever given to an amateur player.^[2]

Before even making his professional debut with the Hudson Valley Renegades in 1997, Baseball America ranked him the sixth-best prospect in baseball.^[13] Shoulder and back injuries limited White to 122 minor league games during his career. He never played in the major leagues and retired in 2006 with a career mark of 35–47 and a 4.64 earned run average.^{[8][14][15][16]}

White was the only high school player invited to try out for the United States national baseball team for the 1996 Summer Olympics^[2] but was the last player cut from the team.^[17] He was selected to the 2000 Sydney Olympic team but suffered an injury prior to the games and was forced to return without participating.^[8]