For future reference, it turns out that White Sox public relations announcing an injured list placement for a star player and a media availability for the general manager, within minutes of each other, is not a harbinger of happy news.
It's certainly a more reliable indicator of injury severity than the fact that Luis Robert Jr. played another defensive inning after pulling up early on the first base line in Tuesday's 5-4 loss to the Royals. The White Sox placed Robert on the IL with his second strain of his left hamstring this year, and a decidedly more severe one.
"It's a Grade 2 strain," said Chris Getz. "What comes with that is several weeks. We don't know precisely, but at this point of the year, time is not necessarily a friend with players returning, so there is a chance that perhaps he doesn't make it back by the end of the year."
Without Robert, and Colson Montgomery out of the lineup Wednesday with another recurrence of his minor left side discomfort (he remains on the active roster after undergoing an MRI), a White Sox offensive group that was making their second half watchable has lost a lot of its thump overnight. A rare era of marveling at Robert's physical gifts and appreciating his presence on the team has come to a sudden conclusion, and in grimly apropos fashion.
"He's played extremely hard," said Will Venable, who has been repeatedly lauding Robert's effort on the basepaths. "He's a guy that wants to be out there. Every time I tell him that he's got a day off, he fights me on it and it's just because he wants to be out there, he wants to play hard, he wants to set the tone for the guys and compete."
"He's a great teammate," said Davis Martin. "It's been a lot of fun to see from '22 to '25 how much growth has come from him in a leadership standpoint."
Less sentimentally, team executives do not idly float the possibility of an injury being season-ending. A month and a day from Wednesday, the White Sox play their last game of the season in Washington, and any scenario where Robert returns to action in 2025 would involve him fighting off a notoriously nagging injury in mere weeks' time, requiring minimal rehab, and playing the end of a rebuilding season for a team tilting toward 100 losses again.
More realistically, this news freezes Robert's .298/.352/.456 second half line in place. He returned to being a valuable offensive player over a 31-game sample, but still isn't consistently accessing raw power that can still look top-of-the-scale at times, and has once more gotten injured while running the bases, clouding the picture for how his speed and defense is supposed to provide a high floor for his production.
It's exactly the sort of occurrence that loomed over the decision to hold onto Robert at the deadline in the face of underwhelming trade offers, and might have complicated the decision to pick up his $20 million option ... had the White Sox not already committed to a direction.
"We are committed to Luis," Getz said. "Injuries are part of the game. They have unfortunately been part of his history. I think he’s played in about 110 games this season. And he’s really risen in terms of the impact on this team and the league. And a lot of that quality work happened in this second half window. For what he’s capable of doing, the talent, the impact he can have on this club, we like having Luis Robert here."
Will Robertson was indeed called up from Triple-A Charlotte to take Robert's roster spot, and despite the mixed signals of Tuesday night in Nashville, is already with the team in Chicago. But Brooks Baldwin and Michael A. Taylor are supposed to split the new wealth of opportunities in center field. Baldwin especially figures to have the most meaningful window to stake out what his role on the 2026 in the wake of this. But given the decision that lies ahead this offseason, the player development that Getz talked up most on Wednesday was the progress Robert made to suggest next season could be better.
"He was hitting lefties pretty well but he took it to another level," Getz said. "He was getting on time and been able to get to pitches that he wasn’t earlier in the year and make better decisions at the plate. Anyone that has been tracking it, his confidence in the box really rose and he was a threat.
"So, some of it was mechanical. I’m sure there was a boost in confidence when he started having some success. And underneath it all he was continuing to play really solid defense. There were mechanical focuses he was able to apply to his game, and gain some confidence that really helped the ballclub."
But just as everyone was warming to the idea of a non-superstar version of Robert still being a valuable presence on a growing young team, the White Sox have been dragged back to a previous era: dreaming on potential, and hoping next season brings better injury luck.
