Philly Front Office

You have been told that Luis Robert Jr., centerfielder for the Chicago White Sox, is having a terrible year. Do the stats back that up? Sure do! Take a look for yourself:

AB	Runs	HR	RBI	SO	BB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
282	35	10	40	94	34	.206	.292	.344	.636

Damn, that’s bad. Just objectively miserable across the board. If you think he is your answer as an everyday CF, you really need to stop making decisions. Not just about baseball, but in life. No one in their right mind should employ him every day at this point. Robert is undoubtedly one of the worst everyday players in the game right now. So why am I writing about him? Because I don’t want the Phillies to use him every day.

Robert bats from the right side and something very strange and interesting happens when he hits against lefties…he actually hits them. He hits them good. Real good. Check out his splits from this season:

	AB	Runs	HR	RBI	SO	BB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
vs R	215	22	5	27	76	20	.177	.245	.279	.524
vs L	67	13	5	13	18	14	.299	.427	.552	.979

That’s bonkers! The guy can’t do a thing against righties, but hits like an MVP against lefties. This isn’t new either. The splits vs lefties are only slightly above his career average mostly due to a couple extra HRs. He has never been great against righties, but he was never this bad either. During his gargantuan 5 WAR 2023 season he hit a ton of HRs vs righties and it made all the difference. That has obviously disappeared.

What has never left him is his ability to play CF. He isn’t a gold glover, but he can hold down the position without any trouble. He is not Johan Rojas in CF, but he is better than Brandon Marsh. Speaking of which, let’s take a look at the splits on Marsh for his career (he has had a weird season, so I didn’t think that would be a fair comparison):

Brandon Marsh Splits (career) + Robert (career) vs Lefties

	AB	HR	SO	BB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
vs R	1304	37	439	148	.268	.343	.432	.775
vs L	393	7	171	33	.214	.277	.300	.577

vs L

455

24

128

48

.301

.376

.519

.895

It’s pretty clear that Marsh can’t hit lefties one bit. You knew that already. Marsh desperately needs a platoon partner, but the Phillies unfortunately don’t have anyone for him¹. Imagine if we had Robert to add to the mix? We would basically turn a high .600 OPS guy into a high .800 OPS guy! That would change everything.

If you were wondering about Johan Rojas, he shows pretty even splits across the board. They just aren’t very good. We WISH Rojas was better against lefties as a right hander so we could platoon him. Unfortunately, Rojas is nothing more than a defensive replacement for this team.

Do you feel a little better about Robert now as a platoon bat only?

Cost

Robert is playing in the final guaranteed season of the 6/$50m contract he signed in 2020. Any acquiring team would be on the hook for a pro-rated share of his $15m salary this season. That’s probably going to be around $5.1m unless some other deal concerning the owed money is reached. Unfortunately for the Phillies, this would come with a 110% tax on the money. So $5m is more like $10.5m for a platoon bat. That’s rough.

So how much would it cost in terms of prospects to get the short but expensive side of a platoon OF? I can’t imagine very much. Even with his name recognition, no one is going to give Jerry Reinsdorf a haul for Robert. Maybe, MAYBE if there is any kind of bidding war they could get a top 15 organizational prospect for him. Someone not unlike a Johan Rojas type. Come to think of it, would we do that move straight up? Is 4 more years of Rojas too much for a guy like Robert and the money at this point? He might be. I still think the Phillies should make that deal though.

Robert would give the Phillies high level defense and the right-handed bat we have desperately needed all year. We would still probably need another right-handed hitter, but at least Robert could hold down CF.

1. In last night’s loss to Boston, Max Kepler hit against a lefty to end the game. Imagine if we could have pivoted to Robert in that spot? ↩︎