Over the last three years, it's grown a bit stale that the only thing the White Sox can do to make national headlines is trade away their most notable players.
Thankfully, that's no longer true, as the simple practice of gifting a piece of sports memorabilia to the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and its estimated 1.4 billion adherents, has become a more reliable route to seeing "White Sox" on the home page of ESPN.
But the old ways remain at work, with ESPN's Jeff Passan putting Robert 21st in his ranking of the best players who could get traded this winter. Imagine acquiring a time machine, and using it to travel to White Sox spring training in 2022 to tell various team decision-makers that over the next four seasons, a national consensus would declare Robert unquestionably less valuable than Steven Kwan.
Sadistic wastes of resources aside, what's more notable is that Passan pegged Robert's likelihood of being traded at 60 percent, regarding only the Cardinals' Brendan Donovan and the Mets' Jeff McNeil -- who might benefit from new environs for more than the typical baseball reasons -- as prominent players more likely to be moved this winter.
No deal is imminent, but such a projection is a substantial pivot from the final 48 hours of last July's trade deadline, where officials both with the Sox and other teams discussed Robert's lack of movement as a fait accompli. The White Sox acknowledged -- and continue to acknowledge -- the high-risk nature of Robert's performance and health history, but still valued him as an impact player, whereas opposing teams were more likely to view him as an oft-injured rental role player with good center field defense but increasingly stark platoon splits.
That sort of divide seemed like it could only be bridged by Robert's work on the field, and instead he collected a .690 OPS in August before his season ended with yet another significant soft tissue injury. At the risk of speculating the impact of a microscopic sample, it seemed like a point in favor of Robert's detractors. The Sox, on the other hand, backed up their talk about Robert's ceiling and picked up his $20 million option for 2026, believing the potential return could justify the outlay.
As their weighing of a worthy return for Robert's services has stretched over multiple years, White Sox officials have noted that finding the right deal for a position player is more difficult. No one ever has enough pitching, so a five-man rotation usually has room for an upside play, but as Robert's offense has grown more mercurial, the ideal Sox trading partner must have a specific need for his center field defense, with an offensive balance that can absorb a streaky hitter with pronounced vulnerabilities to right-handed sliders.
But Passan's exquisite reputation for deep, leaguewide sourcing precedes itself and thus is reflective of a new perception Robert's market, even if getting multiple baseball people to agree on when to slap a '60' on something is usually a torturous practice. Early indications are that this doesn't indicate a new level of eagerness for the White Sox to be rid of Robert, if only because they have been ready to trade him for years now, and been budget-limited enough that shedding his salary would have been transformative for their ability to add to their payroll even before he got a $5 million raise for next season.
A more compelling explanation is that Robert's market has changed due to forces beyond 35th & Shields. For one, his contract situation is no longer a source of disconnect. Where some teams speculated that Chris Getz was posturing at the deadline about picking up Robert's option and valuing him as being under team control for another season, now he's straightforwardly a one-year rental player with a club option to be retained at the same $20 million salary.
Perhaps more useful is that free agency, never a great place to find viable long-term center field solutions, offers pretty awful selection at Robert's position. The most accomplished available option, Cody Bellinger, is no longer a full-time center fielder and any long-term plan for maintaining his bat like entails defensive workload management. Harrison Bader has put solid defensive metrics in center of recent and looks like an immediate superior option to Robert after a bounce-back 2025, but is also three years older. Cedric Mullins and Robert posted identical WAR totals per FanGraphs last year (1.3), but Defensive Runs Saved felt Mullins was one of the worst center fielders in the league last year. As far as outfielders with single, aberrant seasons of elite power production go, Robert's was more recent.
After those three, it's defensively-limited reclamation projects (Lane Thomas, Chas McCormick) and fifth outfielder types (Garrett Hampson, Tyler Wade, DaShawn Keirsey Jr.). Recently non-tendered J.J. Bleday is sort of the type of post-hype former top prospect the Sox have been targeting, but defense is one of the central issues why his star has fallen. The four possible fits that Passan lists -- Giants, Mets, Reds and Phillies -- are the same teams that have been circling on Robert since last winter, and the Mets have already iterated through largely unsuccessful stints with Mullins and Bader.
Up until a full Twins teardown prompts Byron Buxton to waive his no-trade clause, the White Sox can credibly shop Robert as the highest-ceiling center fielder available, and haggle over how much his risk detracts from the value. For a supremely talented player set to make $20 million, but coming off two injury-wracked below-average seasons, that probably isn't enough to make Robert's chances of bringing in a worthy prospect haul much better than coin flip.
That's a pretty somber topline item for an MLB team's offseason. But since we only need to survive a week before discourse shifts to asking Pope Leo XIV if the White Sox draft lottery results support or undermine the concept of an interventionist God, it will do.
