The Luis Robert Jr. Conundrum

As I am writing this on the last day of May, Luis Robert‘s batting line is an abysmal .187/.275/.302. It’s hard for me to believe that this is the same guy that hit 38 HR and 36 2B just 2 years ago. The drop off in hitting production has been drastic, leaving many to wonder what is going on? This answer is needed quickly as Luis remains one of the White Sox intended trade assets at the deadline.

One thing I want to toss aside immediately is that Luis has stopped trying. Luis is still playing well on defense those his metrics are slightly down and he leads the league in stolen bases with 21, which is crazy since he’s only been on base about 60 times. BeefLoaf and White Sox Dave discuss this on The Stretch right at the 59 minute mark:

With the assumption that he’s working to improve, let’s look at what has changed. His chase rate has gone down drastically over the past 2 years from swing at out of the zone pitches at a 40% rate down to 35% in ’24 and now down to 30% in ’25. With this his walk rate has gone from 5% up to 11%. This would typically make you happy and if you told us in 2023 that Luis’s walk rate would more than double by 2025, we’d be betting MVP futures. But with this came a lot of bad, especially last year. He saw a drop in barrel %, expected batting avg, expected slug, hard hit %, and launch angle sweet spot %. All that while seeing a rise in strike out %. This simply provides metrics for what your eyes have already shown you: while he’s laying off bad pitches more, he’s not whacking the good ones like he used to.

Going back to Dave, here’s his take on it. One that I’ve heard from others, including Josh Nelson of Sox Machine

Analysis paralysis is definitely a way to describe what happens. It feels like that, it looks like that, but is there a metric that could show us that? Sean Anderson describes this well here:

The intercept point is something I brought up in the Sunday Soak recently as well. Luis still has great bat speed, he’s brought his K rate back down (30.1%) closer to 2023’s 28.9%, but the contact is not the same. But maybe there is some hope. Sean posted this 10 days ago. That intercept point has changed quite a bit since then. Moving from -2.1 inches to -1.3, much closer to the -0.9 of 2023. There may be more to this as well. Robert’s more patient approach also brought another change with it, he moved back in the box. This will naturally change your intercept point since you are further behind the front of the plate. He is, in fact, almost 2 inches further back. Is it time for him to move back up? Is he now processing pitches just as well as he was in 2023, but with a more patient approach? Sorry to say, I simply don’t know.

Other metrics I mentioned above that dropped in 2024 have moved back closer to or higher than they were previously. Baseball Savant provides a nice view:

To sum up that chart, he’s making hard contact, he’s barreling the ball better than last year but not as good as ’23, and his launch angle and whiff rates still leave something to be desired. But it all seems to be improving and while we haven’t seen the results, his “expected” numbers are quite different than his actuals. You can throw that out and say, “Chorizy, we live in the ACTUAL world not the expected.” That’s fine, I’m not asking you to bet on a bounce back. I am asking the White Sox to consider it though.

I think the White Sox should and will let the next 2 months play out and take it as close to the deadline as possible with Luis. Barring an injury, which based on history is possible, his value on the trade market won’t get much lower. So they should give him every plate appearance possible to improve it. Now here’s where I lose you…

Let’s say the offers are underwhelming, which I am guessing they are right now. I don’t see a world where the Sox pony up $20M for the club option. But I don’t think anyone else would either. Can the White Sox be opportunistic here and extend Luis at a reasonable rate? His hope had to be for $40M over the next 2 years, but what if that were over 4 years? Giving Luis 4/$40M to be a defense first CF that steals a bunch of bases is probably a bit of an overpay in 2026 (someone like Myles Straw is making $5M/yr). What is the White Sox alternative though? There is no replacement in the minors that I can see. The Sox aren’t going out into free agency and spending on a good CF, and right now, why would they come here? This is a fairly low risk move that can provide a high reward. We might just need to rethink what Luis Robert is for this team.

-Chorizy-E