WestEddy

Oh wait, that's the one of 3 rehabbing arms, right?

It's probably the most tantalizing off-season trade rumor, so everybody keeps publishing teaser articles about teams kicking the tires on him. I'm settling on "Getz really saw Robert as the strongest ceiling of the CF options out there, so kept him for $20M. If somebody wants to suffocate him with prospects, he's all for it, but otherwise, he's got other targets."

I must have missed that. How bad?

Which means, "If Getz gets himself into meth rehab and comes down off his lofty asking price, the Reds could take Robert and $15M off his hands in exchange for an A-ball arm who's already passed his real estate licensing exam."

Yeah, comparing similar levels, Meidroth has always walked more. They only disparity is comparing Antonacci's 13.3% walk rate across 3 levels (low A to AA) to Meidroth's major league rate of 8.9%. Apples and oranges.

Why are we releasing him? He put up positive production this last season, and he's relatively cheap.

Not that somebody leaked that info to him, but that Getz was asking for a player beyond Petty (which Wittenmeyer has already told us) AND the Comp pick, which we know Getz wants to get his hands on.

Well, if the Bartolo Colonoscopy tweet has any veracity, they'd get a starting pitcher they could work on this season, a CF who hasn't made the transition to AAA yet, and a Comp pick that pads out the 2026 draft even further. While that is certainly not the Crochet return, this would definitely be workable for $10 and Robert.

I think that's where we are. The league sees Robert as what he's produced in the last 2 seasons, and Getz sees him as the post ASB guy, which means he won't be dealt unless it's for a price that nobody really wants to pay. Which is fine. I look forward to the old Robert awakening and making the league rue their miserly off-season ways.

I agree and disagree. I'm still in the trade him camp, although the Reds looked like the best trade partner. I don't know if they match up with the Pirates or Mariners for their Comp pick. I think the Sox could get 2 WAR in CF some way, and Robert being out of the picture forces them to get creative. That said, Robert does fill a huge hole out there, and if he does break through in the manner he's being marketed, hoo-boy, get outta his way.

Stretching for the sake of argument. He plays at the rate of an average major league player, even if it's just for 2/3 of a season.

Robert hasn't been BAD. He's put up around 1.4 bWAR in about 100 games in each of the last two seasons, when stretched over 162 games is about 2 WAR, which is an average major leaguer. And he does have the ceiling of a 4-5 WAR player, if somebody can get him to tap into it again. I don't think it's unreasonable to think he could replicate what he did for a month's worth of games just this last year. If he worked through a hitch in his swing, or started reacting different to the way he's pitched, he doesn't decide in each at-bat he is the guy who OPSed .540 in August of 2024.

That doesn't really bother me. I guess I argue against the "if only we would do all this stuff to create the perfect environment for Robert to not be ho-hum" people. He should be the guy who is the stuff that engenders excellence from his teammates, not the other way around. He does have value as our CF for the first 4 months of 2026. Unless he turns into Superman, he's not getting anything different out of trade partners in July. I think the league is wise to him.

Wondering if the Gordon Wittenmeyer leak was more the Reds trying to get Bleday's people and the Marlins to s%*# or get off the pot.

Unless Getz has announced that he's got a keeper and everybody ought to pony up their best and last offer. f

Caulfield changed this from a general MLB FA thread to "White Sox" thread. I was putting the Sox signings in the MLBTR offseason outlook thread. But here's a non-Sox signing that is interesting in that some at the Sox Machine fan/roster threads yearned for Harvey.

2 things. I did think Crochet could stay healthy. The cause of one of my first wildings, here. Crochet has issues that resulted in TJS and looked healthy. Robert is just chronically injured. Every season, he pulls something doing normal baseball things. Also, when you talk about Robert putting up 3 WAR by the end of June, you're talking about a rate of production he's never attained in his career. That's not even "odds against him" territory. I agree that he'd have to become a completely different player in order to change the conversation at the TDL to a player teams vied for. But that's like betting on the dealer mistakenly leaving the instruction card in a deck of cards, and you getting a pair of them on the draw. All in order to get a slightly better return.

Lineup construction is a different argument from Robert's abilities and ceiling. People feel compelled to shift focus from Robert to lineup, roster and culture issues because for the last 2 seasons, Robert has OPSed 15% below average. I agree with you that Robert seems to be coming around, offensively. There are positives to be gleaned from keeping him just as there are to trading him for an interesting return. I vote for trading him, more based on the fact that he's not part of the future, could offer opportunity to blocked or challenged post-hype dudes, and boredom. My main argument is that any TDL return isn't going to be better than now. Robert covering CF is value that we're mostly discounting.

You are correct, and I agree with you. I even shut up when the Lenyn Sosa/low IQ stuff gets going because I think that's of the same ilk. There's even been a study about announcer opinions when it comes to white vs. non-white players. I believe that Robert works hard, harder than any of us can imagine. I think all these guys think baseball in ways none of us can.

I don't think Robert lollygags, or any of that. What I said was more in response to the arguments about Robert perking up after Colson and Teel were promoted, or the "protection in the lineup" canard.

The more I read and respond to this, the more it cements in my mind that Luis Robert is a 2 bWAR/162 player who will only play around 100 games, so you'll get about 1 bWAR by end of June, mostly predicated on his speed and defense. He won't stay healthy. He won't hit the way we hope for. He's going to hit for about 15% below league average. There's no magic hitting streak that's going to pry loose somebody's #101 prospect that can explode in our system. 2023 is the curse that makes up believe there's a monster pent up in there. There isn't. Look at his batting average drop precipitously over his career, year by year.

I do not argue that Robert works hard. But I do think he thinks too much, or gets brought down by losing, or whatnot. A bunch of the arguments here center around putting a stronger lineup around him to protect him. Health is no longer a wild card, unfortunately. I think Getz is riding the line. We could use him for 4 months in CF. We're not trading him for scraps. That's established. Robert does have unrealized "ceiling" tied up in him continuing to mature as a hitter, getting better players around him, etc. Average major leaguers shouldn't really be talked about in those terms. They should plug in and produce at the rate they're known for, not only if you do a bunch of other things to "protect" or motivate him.

The JR vs. Boras thing has pretty much worked its way out, hasn't it? It's not really a concern that JR avoids Boras, he avoids the big money. And Boras is big money.

If they got Chase Petty and the Comp pick, I'd do it. Maybe Getz is holding out for that other player. I don't think Robert has more value than the field right now. There is potential ceiling, but he's going to be injured for a chunk, he is going to sulk, he does need motivation to produce. I just don't think there will be much more value or interest at the trade deadline, regardless of what Robert does in the first 4 months.

I've always held out hope for Robert to regain that prowess he had in 2023. But if you take a sober look at his B-R page, he's been available roughly 100 games in 3 of the last 4 seasons. He's put up 1.4 bWAR and 85 OPS+ in the last 2. I mean, that's a league average production when he's in the lineup. But if you're banking on packing a lineup around the guy to make him better, maybe you could just go out and find somebody who gives you what Robert does for cheaper, or develop a better CF. Jose Abreu was always a good hitter. When playing on garbage teams, he still put in his work and hit like he was supposed to. Robert should be the guy who makes Colson and Teel better, not the other way around.