Luis Robert’s 2022 MVP Campaign Starts Now

Luis Robert and the White Sox season abruptly came to an end this past week at the hands of the Astros high powered bats and their own shortcomings. It was a strange season for Robert due to an injury to his hip flexor that kept him out of action from early May until early August. The White Sox cruised through 2021 in an especially weak AL Central Division, which ultimately may have led to their downfall, as it looked like their bats simply could not wake up in time before the Astros had taken 3 games in their 5 game series. Robert did not garner much mainstream national buzz in his sophomore year, largely due to the aforementioned injury keeping his counting stats low, and historic campaigns from fellow AL standouts like Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Shohei Ohtani. A deeper dive into the numbers shows just how exponentially he is improving, and how scary Robert can be with a full season of games.

Robert’s 2020 rookie season was considered largely a success, although he faltered from surefire AL Rookie Of The Year with an absolutely abysmal September, where pitchers seemed to have him figured out. On August 31, Robert’s slash line was .298/.348/.612, while playing potentially the best center field in the major leagues. In September, Robert struck out 34% of the time, with a wRC+ of 20. What on earth happened? Robert’s swinging strike rate did not jump, as is a cliché way of explaining struggles with a rookie. The rate actually dropped from 24% to 21%. What actually happened was that Robert’s only real weakness was amplified by big league pitching, which was missing hard contact with high spin rate fastballs (cutters, two seamers.) Robert had one of the highest rates of fouled off pitches in the majors, which indicates a batter whose cut through the zone is off. His card contact rate on the month was only 18%, compared to 38.1% just the month before in August. Robert’s massive home run against the A’s in the playoffs was the only saving grace for a terrible end to the season. As us fans have learned in short order however, we should never doubt Luis Robert’s ability to improve like an AI robot.

Robert’s 2021 was quietly incredibly impressive. Combining elite defense with his rapid improvements to an already great offensive game, he was one of the most valuable players in the league when he was on the field. The biggest difference to my eye was addressing what ended up being his weakness in his rookie year. In 2021, Robert went from being a negative to a positive against cutters, putting up a 1.54 wFC/C (Runs above average against cutters, 0 being average, 3 being elite.) While 1.54 is not graded at elite, simply being able to hit that pitch hard no longer gave pitchers the ability to have a get of jail free card against him. Another massive improvement for Robert was going from a 1.74 wCU/C (Runs above average against curveballs) to a blistering 5.21. The curveball was the best pitch to strike La Pantera out on in his rookie year, while in 2021, his discipline against the pitch suddenly became elite, which is highly unusual. Discipline and pitch recognition is usually rather static or slow to improve, but Robert’s improvement was night and day. Pitchers now had to throw a higher percentage of balls in the zone against Robert, going from a rate of 36.3% in 2020 to 41% in 2021, and Robert hammers balls in the zone. Robert’s contact rate with pitches in the zone jumped from 74.5% to 86.4% which is in line with the aforementioned trend of him improving against high spin rate pitches. As a result of these specific improvements, Robert’s productivity skyrocketed. Towards the end of the year, he began hitting home runs at a better rate than any previous point of his career, and finished with a 157 wRC+ compared to an average 100 wRC+ in 2020. Due to these improvements he has already made, and his well established ability to drastically improve through hard preparation year to year, MLB fans should be expecting the full counting stat breakthrough experience for Chicago’s 6 tool Cuban import in 2022.