{"id":363008,"date":"2025-12-23T03:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T03:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/363008\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T03:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T03:19:07","slug":"reds-white-sox-reengage-on-luis-robert-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/363008\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds, White Sox Reengage On Luis Robert Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last offseason, the Reds were among the teams<\/a> linked to Luis Robert Jr.<\/a> in trade conversations. The White Sox surprisingly held onto their center fielder both last winter and beyond the trade deadline. They\u2019ve been content to keep him into 2026 but aren\u2019t closed off to talks.<\/p>\n

Bob Nightengale of USA Today<\/a> and Gordon Wittenmyer of The Cincinnati Enquirer<\/a> each report that the Reds have resumed discussions with the Sox. Nightengale also lists the Mets as a possibility. Robert has been more loosely tied to Pittsburgh, San Diego and Philadelphia at points throughout the offseason.<\/p>\n

The Reds have yet to upgrade a lineup that ranked 14th in scoring despite playing half its games at Great American Ball Park. Their park-adjusted offense was eight percentage points below league average. That tied them with the Angels and Rangers for fifth-worst in MLB. Cincinnati made a run at\u00a0Kyle Schwarber<\/a> but reportedly viewed the Ohio native as a unique free agent. There\u2019s no indication they\u2019re going to reallocate the $25MM annual salary that they offered Schwarber elsewhere on the free agent market.<\/p>\n

Robert will make $20MM next season. Wittenmyer writes that the White Sox may be willing to eat roughly half that salary to facilitate a trade. There\u2019s a matching club option for the 2027 campaign. Chicago\u2019s seeming willingness to pay down part of the contract would be conditional on getting a package of controllable talent that they like. Robert isn\u2019t a pure salary dump. If the Sox had viewed him as a negative value asset, they would have bought him out for $2MM at the beginning of the winter.<\/p>\n

Cincinnati has a quality center fielder in\u00a0TJ Friedl<\/a>. They don\u2019t have an everyday option in left, where Friedl\u2019s below-average arm strength would be less of a concern. Robert would certainly upgrade the outfield defense, though it\u2019s less clear whether he\u2019s a consistent enough hitter to be Cincinnati\u2019s marquee offseason pickup. He has been a well below-average hitter since his 38-homer campaign two years ago. Robert owns a .223\/.288\/.372 batting line with a near-30% strikeout rate in 856 plate appearances since the start of 2024. He looked like he was turning a corner in the second half of \u201925 but suffered a season-ending hamstring strain in August.<\/p>\n

The Mets have a clearer need in center field. Tyrone Taylor<\/a> projects as the starter despite hitting .223\/.279\/.319 across 341 plate appearances this past season. Top prospect\u00a0Carson Benge<\/a> is looming but struggled in his first 24 Triple-A contests after raking up through Double-A. He\u2019s likely to begin the year in the minors. Left field is wide open following the\u00a0Brandon Nimmo<\/a> and\u00a0Jeff McNeil<\/a> trades.<\/p>\n

New York is virtually certain to add an outfielder. Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a> write that they\u2019re looking to add a right-handed bat somewhere in the lineup. Robert qualifies and is coming off a strong season against left-handed pitching. He was terrible against southpaws in 2024 but raked against them in every other season and has a lifetime .293\/.367\/.505 slash with the platoon advantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last offseason, the Reds were among the teams linked to Luis Robert Jr. in trade conversations. The White…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,4008,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-363008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-luis-robert","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}