Somewhat lost in the weekend shuffle of posturing NFL divisional games, NCAA football playoff high drama, college basketball showcases, Premier League football clashes, and my kids each having the flu at the same time as my wife was the news that the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds are discussing a deal involving former All-Star outfielder Luis Robert, Jr.
At least, that’s what Bob Nightengale of USA Today had to relay yesterday, so I’ll allow you to process that relay of information with the
appropriate filters. Bob suggests that the pale hose are in the market for controllable starting pitching in the wake of signing Munetaka Murikami to be their resident slugger, and moving on from Robert – and much of his $20 million salary for 2026 – might be their next big move.
If you focus purely on the high points of Robert’s career to date you’ll be salivating at the idea. At age 28, he’s pretty clearly still in prime age. He’s been an All-Star, won a Gold Glove for his work in CF, and also taken home a Silver Slugger. He once posted a 154 OPS+ in a partial season while also has a 130 OPS+ in a full season’s worth of work under his belt, with power to bonk 38 dingers in a single season and speed to swipe as many as 33 bags.
Doing only that would limit your willingness to process the meager .660 OPS he’s posted dating back to the start of the 2024 season. As he’s battled a litany of injuries over that time, he’s limped to just a .223/.288/.372 line in 856 PA in that span, being poor against RHP the entirety of that time while alternating between awful and palatable against southpaws (he hits right-handed). For $20 million in 2026, that brings risk of not just injury into the fold, but also of simply being a bad hitter, too, something that likely would be an ask too large for the Reds were they to take on the bulk of – let alone all of – Robert’s hefty salary.
If there’s any silver lining here, it’s how Robert finished the 2025 season after coming back from a left hamstring injury suffered in June – or, rather, how he finished his 2025 season. When he returned on July 8th, he proceeded to hit .293/.349/.459 in 146 PA across the final 37 games he played, socking 6 homers and swiping 11 bags while showing excellent command at the plate (11/14 BB/K). That all came with only a .317 BABIP, something that’s wholly sustainable for a player who hits the ball as hard as he does and runs as fast as he does, too.
The problem with even the silver lining is that those final 37 games ended on August 26th and not on the season’s final day. That’s because a recurrence of the same hamstring problem flared up and ended his season right then, once again cutting short a chance for him to show he’s fully over the ‘injury prone’ label.
There’s obviously a level where acquiring Robert from Chicago makes infinite sense to the Reds. If they don’t have to give up much and the White Sox eat a ton of cash, sure!
There’s obviously a level where it’s going to be clearly too risky for the Reds front office to say yes, too. If Chicago comes asking for Rhett Lowder and only kicks in $3 million, well, Nick Krall is going to take his ball and go home in a heartbeat.
It’s the middle ground where this concept becomes truly interesting. Robert’s in the final year of his contract, meaning he’ll be reaching free agency at age 29 this time in a year. If he truly has a bounce-back kind of 2026, he’d enter free agency as one of the most coveted position players on the market – a guy with proven 30/30 prowess who plays a premium defensive position. If he’s moved now, and not at the deadline, whoever he plays for in 2026 would get the chance to issue him a Qualifying Offer and potentially recoup a damn decent draft pick if he heads elsewhere in free agency. That’s a corner of these negotiations that cannot be lost on anyone.
Of course, there’s also the chance he pulls a hammy in Cactus League play and is haunted by it off and on all year, and that’s going to drive the GM of any potential team acquiring him nuts trying to process.
If anything, this rumored news is once again an assertion of two tenets we’ve come to take as gospel so far this winter – that the Cincinnati Reds know they need a big bat for their lineup, and that the rest of the baseball world is envious of the kind of pitching depth the Reds have put together.
