(670 The Score) After the White Sox dealt ace Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox on Wednesday in exchange for four prospects as they continue to rebuild, the attention now turns to center fielder Luis Robert Jr.’s future on the South Side.
Will the White Sox trade him too this offseason? Or will they hold onto him longer? It’s a question that White Sox general manager Chris Getz has to weigh as the talented 27-year-old Robert is coming off an injury-plagued season.
Robert hit .224 with 14 homers, 35 RBIs and a .657 OPS in 100 games in 2024, when he missed significant time due to a hip injury. It came after Robert was an All-Star in 2023, when he hit 38 homers with an .857 OPS.
“You got to be so careful with a player like Luis,” Getz said on the Mully & Haugh Show on Friday morning. “A year ago, coming off the 2023 season, gosh, he was close to a 4-to-5 win player. It was like, ‘Are we just scratching the surface here?’ Unfortunately, he got hurt the second week of the season. He had a really solid spring training. He looked pretty good the first week – had a multi-home run game, he was spitting on pitches and having good at-bats. Unfortunately, he had the hip flexor injury that took him out for several months. And when he came back, he was just playing catch-up. He was putting so much pressure on himself to perform to make up for lost time. It just snowballed. Baseball is too hard of a game to put on undue pressure.
“At his floor, just because of the defense and the baserunning and the power, we’re talking about an above-average major league player – and that’s without really even tapping into the bat consistently. If he gets a smooth runway with the bat, now we’re back to being that 4-or-5-win player, if not more. We got to get it right on the front end. That’s what makes him attractive to other clubs, but you want to make sure you’re going about it the right way in terms of capturing value for Luis. If it makes sense to move him, you do it. But you don’t just do it for the sake of doing it, because we’re talking about a tremendous talent.”
Robert is under team control through the 2027 season. He’ll make $15 million in 2025. The final two years of his contract are $20-million team options with an accompanying $2-million buyout.