In a move that should accelerate their already-impressive rebuild, the White Sox on Saturday signed 19-year-old Cuban outfielder Luis Robert, reportedly offering a signing bonus of more than $25 million.
Sources: #WhiteSox closing in on Luis Robert. Deal expected to be more than $25M.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) May 20, 2017
By all accounts, Robert is the real deal. He’s an athletic outfielder and a powerful right-handed hitter. He’s been raking in Cuba since he was 16, and in 2016 was batting .401/.526/.687 with 12 home runs in 232 plate appearances in the top league there. Robert is widely considered the second best international prospect in baseball, after only Japanese hitter-pitcher phenom Shohei Otani.
Robert’s signing bonus will reportedly be the second biggest ever given to an international amateur free agent, behind only the $31.5 million fellow Cuban (and current top prospect) Yoan Moncada got from the Red Sox in 2015.
In several ways, the White Sox seem like a perfect fit for Robert. They’ve already got Jose Abreu, another Cuban, who will presumably help mentor Robert before and after he reaches the big leagues. And they’ve got the right timetable, with a roster not ready to compete in 2017 or 2018 but that should be awfully good by 2019 or 2020.
It’s not over yet, but White Sox general manager Rick Hahn has turned the franchise around awfully quickly. In just the last six months, Chicago has added four of the top 4o prospects in baseball (Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech and Reynaldo Lopez), plus a guy, Dane Dunning, with a 0.35 ERA in 26 innings this year in Single-A. And now Robert.
Since opting to rebuild, the White Sox will have added:
Luis Robert
Yoan Moncada
Lucas Giolito
Michael Kopech
Reynaldo Lopez
Dane Dunning— Chris Emma (@CEmma670) May 20, 2017
Obviously we can’t know yet whether all these guys will pan out (not ever rebuild goes as smoothly as the Cubs’ did), but if even half of them do, that’s a pretty good young core for the ChiSox.
As for Robert, Cuban imports have had a pretty strong track record in recent years, from Abreu to Yoenis Cespedes to Yasiel Puig to Moncada and on down the list. If Robert is half as good as he’s expected to be, he’ll be in the Majors before long, contributing to a White Sox team that could be a consistent playoff threat.
