White Sox and Luis Robert Agree on $50 Million Extension

The White Sox have been active this winter. They retained José Abreu, signed free agents Yasmani Grandal, Dallas Keuchel, Edwin Encarnación, and Gio Gonzalez, and traded for Nomar Mazara. While a Luis Robert contract extension, first reported by Bob Nightengale, might not change the team’s outlook in the near term, it does mean that the White Sox won’t manipulate Robert’s service time by keeping a deserving player in the minor leagues to start the season. The deal will guarantee Robert $50 million over the next six seasons, with two $20 million team options, bringing the potential total value of the contract to $88 million over eight seasons.

This is the second straight year to see the White Sox sign a top prospect without any playing time in the majors to a contract extension. Last March, Eloy Jiménez agreed to a six-year deal worth $43 million with a pair of team options that could take the contract to $75 million. A little less than year later, Robert gets a slightly higher guarantee and slightly richer option years. When Robert signed out of Cuba, the last big-bonus amateur to do so under the old international free agent rules, he received a bonus of $26 million. All told, Robert will have received $76 million in guarantees before he ever swings a bat at Guaranteed Rate Field.

The CBA between the players and owners puts players at a severe disadvantage when negotiating these types of contracts. Robert shouldn’t have to consider whether signing the deal will put him on the Opening Day roster, as his play and readiness, honestly assessed, should carry the greatest weight, something Kris Bryant and the player’s union are still arguing five years later. If Robert dreams of a seven-figure salary, the potential exists three years from now in arbitration. As for negotiating a contract in free agency, with multiple bidders and a potential nine-figure guarantee, the seven years (assuming service-time manipulation) represent roughly one-third of his entire life to date. None of those factors are under Robert’s control.

Understanding that this system, designed to provide incredible bargaining power to teams at this stage of a player’s career, exists, the decision made by Robert and his representatives was a reasonable one. The White Sox have bought out any controversy they might be keen to avoid by suppressing Robert’s service time, guaranteed Robert the money he would likely have made in arbitration, and gained an additional year of team control (two, if he had made the Opening Day roster), and given themselves cost certainty. For Robert, he’s now guaranteed the money he might have made in arbitration if he played well, and if he does indeed perform up to expectations, he’s given up just a year or two of free agency while taking in another $40 million and becoming a free agent after his age-29 season.

Comparing this contract to worse deals shouldn’t be used to obscure the system that leads to deals like this being struck, but it can provide some useful context. Consider that the Braves signed two established players — at least one of whom might at the time have been called a star — in Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies for a combined total of $169 million over 19 years, potentially buying out eight years of free agency between them if all of the contract options are exercised. The contracts to Robert and Jiménez, who hadn’t yet reached the majors at signing, could pay $163 million over 16 years while buying out just four (or two if considering service time manipulation) years of free agency if all options are exercised. The current system serves to keep salaries down for players like Jiménez and Robert, but given the constraints of that system, both Robert and Jiménez received what might serve as reasonable deals in this universe, while Atlanta’s pair of stars signed deals operating on another dimension of gross inequity. That doesn’t make the system good, but it does help to put the deals in context, and explain Robert and his camp’s assessment of the extension.

Leaving aside the contract, Robert as a player is at once tantalizing with his tools, improving his skills, and besieged by a major question mark at the plate. Before last season, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel gave Robert a 55 Future Value and made the following notes in the White Sox prospect write-up:

Because his thumb cost him April, May, and July (he re-aggravated it), it was hard to get extended looks during 2018 until Robert’s six-week stint in the Arizona Fall League (which was also interrupted by a hamstring issue). LouBob’s AFL stats were fine, but his swing path left him vulnerable to velocity on the inner half, and he too often expanded the zone. There’s doubt that he’ll get to all of his raw power in games, both due to the swing path and lack of plate discipline, but it isn’t as if he’s had time to make proper adjustments yet, and the pitching he saw in Arizona was the best he’s seen in his life.

Robert’s tools were undeniable, but the results were lacking. I spoke with Longenhagen, who indicated that Robert worked on a new swing in 2019 and got great results. His groundball rate was 46% in 2018 in a little over 200 plate appearances and he hit no home runs. Even if you include the Arizona Fall League, he hit just two homers in 279 plate appearances across the whole season. With a new swing, Robert dropped his groundball rate to 29% and his homers went way up, smashing 32 in 551 plate appearances. There are still concerns about Robert’s ability to hit good breaking pitches, and his low, 5% walk rate with a strikeout rate near 25% shows there are still swing and miss issues that need to be worked out.

Despite those concerns, his ability to play a good center field combined with improving his swing (and the effort and ability that takes) instills more confidence that Robert will be able to get to his power in major league games. This likely moves Robert up to a 60 FV this year, the same as Jiménez was a year ago. Robert already projects for roughly three wins over the course of a full season at just 22 years old. He will join Yoán Moncada (24), Tim Anderson (26), and Jiménez (23) to make one of the more exciting young cores in baseball, with Nick Madrigal (22) on the way and the enigmatic, ground ball-heavy Nomar Mazara (24) also part of the lineup with veterans Abreu, Grandal, and Encarnación.

Luis Robert was always supposed to be a part of Chicago’s next window of contention, but this contract cements his status with the club, this year and beyond. The deal isn’t strictly fair given the potential value he could bring to the White Sox — the leverage the team has in situations like this makes that difficult. But given the current labor situation, it counts as reasonable. After all their free agent signings, the team is now a contender, and it might have more room to add more given a below-average $124 million payroll. Free agents are always going to help, but if the White Sox are going to make the playoffs, it is their homegrown (or at least traded for) prospects who are likely to decide the club’s future. Grandal and Encarnación and Keuchel might push them over the top, but Moncada, Anderson, Giolito, Jiménez, and now Robert provide the base to make it possible. If someone had asked two years ago when the White Sox might have more wins than the Cubs, 2020 would have seemed like an overly optimistic answer. It’s not anymore.