White Sox Maintain High Asking Price On Luis Robert Jr.

Much of the focus on the White Sox’ trade efforts this offseason will center around Garrett Crochet, and with good reason — he’s the top starting pitcher who’s readily available on the market. However, heading into the 2024 campaign, it was Luis Robert Jr. who was seen as Chicago’s potential top prize at the deadline. Another slate of injuries ruined the talented but fragile center fielder’s ’24 campaign and further added to his reputation as an injury-prone player. The Sox are still hoping to move Robert, writes Bob Nightengale of USA Today, but one rival general manager tells Nightengale that Chicago’s asking price is simply unrealistic, given all of the health concerns surrounding Robert.

“You’ve got to hope he finally stays healthy and can be the player everyone envisioned all along,” that GM said. “But the White Sox are acting like he’s some big star center fielder and are asking for your top prospects.”

It’s understandable that the Sox would be reluctant to sell low on Robert. He’s among the most talented players in the sport when healthy — he just simply hasn’t been healthy for the majority of his career. Robert has had six IL placements dating back to the 2021 season, many of which sidelined him for significant periods of time. A hip flexor strain in 2021 sidelined him for more than three months. He missed more than two months this past season owing to the same injury. Robert has also been shelved for a wrist sprain, an MCL sprain, and a more ominous viral infection in 2022 that resulted in blurred vision, dizziness and lightheadedness.

That massive slate of injuries looked to have taken its toll on Robert this past season. He landed on the injured list just a week into the season and returned in June but never really found his footing. Robert hit five homers in his first 36 plate appearances upon activation — but he only collected one other hit in that time. He tallied 396 plate appearances post-injury in 2024 and slashed just .225/.281/.370 with a 32% strikeout rate.

Clearly, that’s not the type of production that’s going to generate interest in a player who’s owed a $15MM salary next season. However, from 2021-23, Robert slashed a combined .287/.331/.511 with 63 homers and 37 steals in just 1292 plate appearances. He played plus-plus defense in center field along the way; despite playing only 301 games in that three-year span, Robert tallied 21 Outs Above Average — good for 12th among all major league outfielders. That strong run was headlined by a 2023 campaign — Robert’s age-25 season — during which he hit .264/.315/.542 and popped 38 home runs in a career-high 595 trips to the plate. Robert made the All-Star team, won a Silver Slugger, and drew some downballot MVP votes.

That’s the type of upside any team would be hoping to land when acquiring Robert. Unfortunately, while his per-game and per-inning performance in 2021-23 was excellent, that 2023 season is the only one in which Robert has exceeded 425 plate appearances. He’s appeared in only 65.9% of possible games in his five-year run with the White Sox.

Robert’s 2024 season wasn’t without its silver linings. His average sprint speed, per Statcast, ticked up to 28.8 feet per second — the second-best mark of his career. He’d been down at a still-strong but not-elite 27.9 ft/sec the first time he dealt with a hip flexor strain. His speed bounced back more this time around. And while his defensive grades dipped, that was largely due to some errant throws. Statcast still rated Robert’s range quite strongly. He also sat in the 84th percentile of MLB hitters in bat speed and typically hit the ball hard (90.1 mph average exit velocity, 40.6% hard-hit rate) when he made contact. He just didn’t make contact enough (career-worst 32.8% strikeout rate).

Robert’s contract pays him $15MM next year. There are a pair of matching $20MM club options for the 2026 and 2027 seasons on the deal. Getting the 2021-23 version of Robert for the next three seasons at a combined $55MM would be a steal, even if he spent about one-third of that time on the injured list, as he did in ’21-’23. (Both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs agree Robert was worth about 10.5 WAR during that run, even with the missed time.)

The problem for interested teams, of course, is that there’s no guarantee he’ll get back to that level of play. Taking a one-year, $15MM flier is probably appealing to many outfield-needy clubs, particularly with the pair of club options looming. Taking on that salary and surrendering top-tier prospects is another story entirely. From the White Sox’ vantage point, trading Robert to simply clear $15MM in guaranteed money would be foolhardy. They barely have any money on the books, with an estimated payroll in the $75MM range, per RosterResource. That’s half their 2024 payroll. Selling low on Robert and watching him bounce back to stardom elsewhere would be agonizing for the Sox and their fans.

It all makes Robert a very difficult player to trade this winter. The Sox have no urgency to shed the relatively small amount that remains on his contract. Other clubs surely feel there’s little sense in trading top-tier prospects for an oft-injured player coming off a 100-game season that was the least-productive stint of his career.

The likeliest outcome would seem to be a midseason trade. If Robert bounces back, the Sox can put him back on the block and effectively market two-plus years of his services. If he continues to struggle, they could move him for a light return, knowing the eventual likelihood was that his option would be bought out anyhow. Perhaps a team could throw caution to the wind and make a surprisingly strong offer for him in the near future, but that seems unlikely. The Sox did move Dylan Cease in spring training when his Cactus League performance quieted some concerns about a pedestrian 2023 season, so it’s possible a big spring from Robert could garner some attention. In all likelihood, though, he seems ticketed to remain on the Sox to open the season, and clubs around the game will keep a close eye on his early performance. If he shows well in April, Chicago GM Chris Getz could follow in Miami counterpart Peter Bendix’s footsteps and make Robert available in late April/early May — as the Marlins did with Luis Arraez.