AL Scouting Director: "[White Sox prospect] Luis Robert is the best player on the planet, and that's no exaggeration"
Okay that headline was obviously click bait, but it wasn’t me who said it so don’t even think about talking shit. But now that you’re here, let’s talk about Luis Robert a little bit.
LuBob is obliterating baseballs in Hi A right now. People are even clamoring for him to be inserted into the White Sox lineup yesterday:
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Now, that is obviously extremely premature. If the .001% chance occurs and he does pull a Juan Soto, and by Juan Soto I mean go from A ball to The Show by skipping AAA completely, awesome. But that’s…. not happening. He’ll have to basically continue on this torrid yet unsustainable first week. I hope he does it, but I’m also realistic and know there will be ebbs and flows to his season. That said, it’s AWESOME to see his absurd tool set equating to this crazy statistical output.
HOWEVAH… he very well could end up in Charlotte this season. Now Birmingham, as I’ve said 100x, is a notoriously difficult place to hit. It’s where hitters go to die in the White Sox system. That, and as players advance through any system, it doesn’t just affect that particular player. It affects many. There will need to be releases, demotions, promotions, etc. So it isn’t just as easy as “send him to AA right now”.
As it stands right now, the Birmingham outfield consists of Blake Rutherford, Joel Booker, and Luis Gonzales with Adolfo soon to return to throwing/fielding after his TJS. The White Sox like each one of them, and each one of them need every day at bats to develop in their own rights. Sure, Robert might be more highly thought of than these guys and for obvious reason, but unless you’re demoting/promoting one of them… then Lu Bob needs to be in Hi A for the short time being.
Unless he goes to Charlotte? Let’s check in over there. Luis Basabe will probably take over one of the OF positions once he’s back in a few weeks from his broken hand, and he’s a really nice prospect in his own right so that’s one OF spot. But then… then we have Preston Tucker, Nicky Delmonico, Brandon Guyer and Charlie Tilson. Every one of these guys are expendable. But at the same time nobody in the Birmingham OF is seemingly ready for a AAA placement yet. There isn’t a point to have these guys fly through the system unless they’ve mastered their current levels.
So that’s why he’s not being promoted at this juncture. It’ll happen sometime in the coming weeks, but right now Hi A is fine for Robert. And it’s not like he dominated last year at the same level either; here’s his slash line in Winston Salem in 2018:
32 games, .244/.317/.309/.625 with ZERO home runs and only 7 other XBHs. Sure he’s mashing right now, but let’s let him continue to do so before we’re ready to insert him into lineups against much superior pitching. My opinion? Another 3-4 weeks should do the trick. And that changes nothing for his trajectory to potentially seeing time in Chicago sometime in mid-April or before next year. So until then let’s just continue to dream about a 2020 lineup that looks something like this:
1. Madrigal 2B
2. Moncada 3B
3. Jimenez LF
4. Abreu 1B
5. Marcel Ozuna? Yasiel Puig? RF
6. Robert CF
7. Castellanos? JD Martinez? Kris Davis? DH
8. Collins? Grandal? Zavala? C
9. Anderson SS
With Kopech, Cease, Rodon, Lopez, Giolito and a PURCHASED STARTING PITCHER (hint hint Gerrit Cole @ the front office)