Chicago White Sox’s Luis Robert Jr., left, is congratulated by manager Will Venable after hitting a … More
Ignore the stat line. In a month, Luis Robert, Jr. is going to be playing for a team other than the Chicago White Sox. They would prefer he was doing better than a .583 OPS, but one way or another, Robert, Jr. has no future with the White Sox.
That’s the case for at least two reasons: One, he will be way too expensive for them to retain. The White Sox have club options for 2026 and 2027, but each year would cost them $20 million. There was a time when Robert, Jr. looked like he might be worth that much per season, but that time has passed. And two, Robert, Jr. is the last viable trade piece the White Sox have before they need to move forward with the group of players they are assembling.
Given his injury history and recent performance, Robert, Jr.’s best appeal to possible buyers is what they think they might be able to get out of him just by a change of scenery. There’s a chance with a new ballclub that Robert, Jr. finds something close to the superstar potential he showed in 2023, when he was healthy enough to play 145 games and hit 38 home runs with 36 doubles and an .857 OPS. But even that is something of a longshot, given that Robert, Jr. has trended downward since then. He couldn’t stay healthy in 2024, and although he has not suffered serious injury this season, there’s the aforementioned OPS the Robert, Jr. owns this season that is raising a red flag to potential suitors.
Every so often Robert, Jr. shows a glimpse of returning to his 2023 form, like when he launched a home run against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday night – his second in the last six games – and told reporters afterward that he is feeling more like his old self.
“That’s what you want to do. Today, I felt as I used to feel in the past,” Robert said through interpreter Billy Russo. “It was good to be able to put the bat there to hit the ball and get that result. I think that was the part I’ve been missing this season.”
The White Sox sure hope so. A month of solid play would boost his trade value at just the right time. General manager Chris Getz was careful not to state plainly what his intentions for Robert, Jr. are when speaking to media at Rate Field on Monday.
“We’ve never been out there making phone calls about Luis Robert,” Getz said. “It’s teams calling us and we have conversations and we stick to the plan that we’ve been working by so far in which if we feel like we can help the long term health of the organization, so be it. We like having Luis Robert and I enjoy having him in the lineup on a nightly basis.”
He also shot down any possibility that the transfer of majority ownership to Justin Ishbia would bring with it an infusion of spending money to sign free agents. The process of Ishbia taking full control of the team will play out slowly, but there was a glimmer of hope that he might start pumping money into the team that would translate into free agent spending in the near term, but that does not appear to be the case.
That means Getz will have to keep working to improve the White Sox by trading players like Robert, Jr. and continuing to stockpile what Getz calls “prospect capital.” He has done a respectable job of that thus far, and some of the players he has acquired in recent trades, like Miguel Vargas and Chase Meidroth, are beginning to establish themselves as likely pieces of the next competitive White Sox team.
Again, as things currently stand with Robert, Jr., he will probably not fetch the kind of return Getz got in sending Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox and in the three-team deal with the Dodgers and Cardinals last summer that brought Vargas to Chicago. Robert, Jr. has remained healthy this season, something that has given him confidence that he will find his form at the plate eventually.
“I thought being healthy was [going to make me] able to perform the way I did in 2023,” Robert, Jr. told reporters this week. “But that’s the way it is. I still keep working hard, and hopefully I’ll get the results in the end.
“I’m feeling good. I’ve been feeling healthy, which is the most important part. I’ve been working every day, hard, trying to get rid of this situation, this moment passing through.”
Luis Robert, Jr. continues to provide sterling defense in center field while being a threat on the basepaths when he does get on, and Robert, Jr. is still just 27 years old. Despite the struggles on offense, the outfielder still has some appeal. Whether he regains his form at the plate in the next four weeks or not, the White Sox are going to deal him. The only question is if Robert, Jr. can bounce back enough to help Getz keep building the next White Sox playoff team.
