Every Team's Most Interesting Player: Chicago White Sox, Luis Robert

This is the sixth in a series of articles about the most interesting player for fantasy owners on each team heading into the 2020 season. We are going alphabetically, so today we’re going to talk about Luis Robert of the Chicago White Sox.

The White Sox are poised to be one of the most interesting teams in 2020 because they have several young players poised to either break into the big leagues or become stars in short order. Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez and Tim Anderson all could’ve qualified for this write up, as could Lucas Giolito. However, Robert is the most intriguing, because he’s got as much hype as any of them, and we haven’t seen him yet. The lack of MLB exposure hasn’t stopped him from rising to No. 110 overall, one spot after Michael Conforto, and ahead of Eduardo Rodriguez, Madison Bumgarner and A’s closer Liam Hendriks. These are lofty expectations. Are they warranted?

Robert, 22, has all the tools. Fangraphs’ Prospects report has him at 65/65 on power, 60/60 on speed, and 60/60 on throws, which is important for him to stick in the lineup if he slumps.

He’s raked at every level of the minors, and showed different facets of his game. In 2019 at Double-A he swiped 21 bases in just 56 games, then hit 16 home runs in 47 games at Triple-A. He’s not going to learn any more down there, and it’s time for him to be tested by big league pitching. The Chi Sox decided not to fool around with his service time, choosing instead to extend him long term. This is a great indicator of how they feel about him internally.

Fantasy owners in redraft leagues may want to exercise just a bit of caution with Robert, however, because while his upside is through the roof, there are some potential issues. Strikeouts can be a problem. He struck out 24.7% of the time at Triple-A, and has lived in the mid to high 20s since moving up to Single-A. Compounding that issue is Robert’s free-swinging approach. He walked less than five percent of the time in Triple-A last season, which didn’t matter against minor league pitching, but could be a factor in extended slumps at the major league level. The slugging and power numbers have been there for Robert, but young free-swingers don’t have a great track record of being great in the big leagues right away.

I have little doubt about Robert being a big-time fantasy asset in his career, but that profile scares me a bit in his age-22 season.

He is currently ranked ahead of Nicholas Castellanos, Michael Brantley and Max Kepler; Kepler in particular is interesting, because he has already posted numbers similar to what I’d expect from Robert in his rookie campaign, albeit without Robert’s stolen base potential. The key for Robert justifying this ADP is if his tremendous speed translates to success on the base paths. Chicago stole 63 bases last season as a team, 13 below league average. That may have been a product of not having base stealers on the roster, but with all the power in this lineup they may not want to risk creating outs and removing RBI opportunities from the sluggers’ plates.

Overall, Robert’s talent is incredible, and I’m all for him in a keeper/dynasty format. In a redraft league, however, I’ll be happy if he falls to me, but I would not reach too far to grab him.