White Sox Star Gets Candid About His Trade Value

After a solid week of play the White Sox are currently on a five game losing streak, including three bad losses to the Chicago Cubs. Despite that, the White Sox have gotten solid contributions out of their young players, Edgar Quero, Chase Meidroth, and Miguel Vargas.

While they make up a solid 1/3rd of the lineup, the rest of the lineup has been underperforming, most notably Luis Robert Jr. This hurts the White Sox, as Robert Jr. is supposed to be far and away the best player on this team, yet he is 25th on the team in WAR with -.1 according to FanGraphs.

This is extremely disappointing, as Robert Jr. looked like a budding superstar in 2023 when he hit 38 homeruns and was an MVP candidate. Most people figured last year was a lost season for Robert Jr. for many reasons, as he did miss some time with an injury.

Now, apparently healthy, Robert Jr. is playing some of the worst baseball of his career. This isn't great for his trade prospects, as even Robert Jr. was candid about his status on the trade market earlier today when speaking with Scott Merkin and the media:

Luis Robert Jr. reflects on his start to 2025 🙃 pic.twitter.com/kFhcg0tDc9

— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) May 20, 2025

This is unfortunate to see, as Robert Jr. genuinely seems like a good guy and has all the potential in the world. But, to this point, he is only hitting .186 with a .281 OBP. He has added five homeruns, 17 RBIs, and 17 stolen bases, which lead the league.

While the average isn't where you want it to be, he has walked significantly more than he ever has, as his OBP is almost .100 points higher than his average. Even if his average was in the low .200s he would have a very respectable OBP.

By all indications the White Sox would like to move off him this season, but with this weird season he is having, what is Robert Jr. going to get in a return? If you ask Robert himself he wouldn't say much, however that may not be the case.

While Robert has been pretty quiet with the bat outside of the five homeruns, he plays gold glove defense and when he does get on base he is a stolen base threat, which can be very valuable to a team. However, if he continues to hit below the Mendoza line, the list of suitors may not be long.

The best thing that can happen to a team who is trying to trade a player is a bidding war and in Robert Jr.'s case, I'm not sure there will be one. I'm sure that there will be a few teams kicking the tires on him hoping they can fix him, but I doubt there will be a bidding war at this point.

There have been rumors that Chris Getz has turned down deals he doesn't think are fair, so he is still holding the line on what he wants to get. With no improvement, the White Sox may be able to steal a singular top 50-100 prospect in baseball, but that may be stretching it. It may be something more along the lines of one of a team's top five prospects in their system.

If you told someone in 2023 that Luis Robert Jr. would hardly fetch you a top-100 prospect in a trade with two more relatively cheap, controllable years, they would have called you insane. Now, that may be a reality.

As the weather warms up the White Sox can hope that Robert Jr. also warms up, as if he even comes close to what he was doing in 2023, the White Sox could get a decent haul. If he can bring his average up to .230 and have 10-15 homeruns by the deadline with 30 stolen bases he would be a hot commodity, but with the current stretch he's on, that seems like a far fetched idea.

Robert Jr. has a ton of talent but he needs to pick it up soon if he wants to play for a contender, and if the White Sox have any hope of getting anything other than a lottery ticket prospect.