It’s Time For White Sox To Take Offers For Luis Robert Jr.

It’s time for Chris Getz to start working the phones. It would be a surprise if the White Sox’s general manager isn’t doing exactly that.

No team in the major leagues was willing to meet Getz’s high asking price for 27-year-old center fielder Luis Robert Jr. last winter. He held onto him in the hope of raising his market at this season’s trade deadline, and why wait until then?

This looks like the perfect time to strike a deal for the high-ceiling, low-floor Robert, who has come out of the gate with five home runs and an AL-high 15 stolen bases in 32 games. Even more importantly, he looks as healthy as he has been since 2023, when he earned a Silver Slugger and some MVP votes.

A long run of injuries — nagging hip flexor issues being the biggest concern — cut the value out of the six-year, $50-million deal the Sox signed with Robert before his age-22 season in 2020. But Robert hasn’t been on the Injured List since June 4, 2024, playing in 132 of the hapless White Sox’s last 136 games.

When he’s healthy, Robert is electrifying. He had 38 homers and 20 stolen bases two seasons ago. But he’s often looked like he’s damaged goods, losing some aggressiveness after his injuries. That’s not the case right now.

Fangraphs valued Robert’s post-injury 100 games at only 0.5 WAR last season, when he hit .224 with 14 homers and 23 stolen bases. That’s why Getz got such a tepid response with the asking price he set in the off-season.

While Robert again got off to a slow start this season, he’s hit .259 with a .913 OPS over his last 15 games. Narrow that focus down to his last nine games and he looks even better: .333 with three homers, nine RBI and eight stolen bases. This is high-ceiling Robert.

While teams don’t often make big trades before Memorial Day, there’s a long list of teams Robert could help. He’s strictly played center field but he could help on the corners too. His fielding is generally an asset, as Rhys Hoskins can attest after Robert robbed him of a grand slam last week.

Texas, which is last in the AL in scoring, just put center fielder Leodys Taveras on waivers. Houston, which just lost a weekend series on the South Side, could put Robert anywhere in the outfield and clearly needs a spark after losing Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman.

The Mariners, Royals and Reds also make sense if they trust that Robert has gotten his mojo back. The metrics suggest he has.

The biggest part of Robert’s success comes from his understanding teams will pitch around him as long as he has the likes of Andrew Vaughn and rookie catcher Edgar Quero hitting behind him. Robert has continued a three-year trend of chasing fewer pitches, currently sitting at 28.4 percent. That’s not great but it’s a lot better than it was earlier in his career.

Robert has been unusually patient in three-ball counts, accepting a walk (14.7 percent) rather than getting himself out swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. He’s elevated his launch angle (19.4 degrees from 13.5 last season), which could make him a bigger factor in a small park like Daikin Park or Great American Ball Park.

Robert had 96th-percentile speed when he arrived arrived from Cuba, with a Statcast sprint speed of 29.1 feet-per-second in 2020. That was down to the 66th percentile in ’22 after he dealt with his first hip flexor strain but he’s clearly learned how to compensate. He was in the 88th percentile last season (28.8) and is currently at 28.4 feet per second, in the 85th percentile.

In addition to the prospect cost, any team acquiring Robert now would be on the hook for about $11.9 million in salary this season and another $2 million as a buyout of his 2026 and ’27 options ($20 million each). But there’s major upside. He could become a foundational player through ’27 if the fit works.

Is the time right for a deal? We’ll see.

You can’t blame teams if they want to scout Robert longer before pulling the trigger. But all it takes is one aggressive team to make the first big trade of the 2025 season.