White Sox Luis Robert has contract we wish Indians would’ve given Francisco Lindor
The Cleveland Indians should’ve offered Francisco Lindor the contract the White Sox gave Luis Robert.
Chicago White Sox center fielder Luis Robert looks like he’s going to be a problem for the Cleveland Indians and the rest of the AL Central fo many, many years.
Heck, even Tribe great Omar Vizquel, who managed Robert at the double-A level, compared the kid to the original “Kid,” Ken Griffey Jr.
Robert, 22, made headlines over the winter when he signed a six-year, $50 million guaranteed contract. The pact also comes with two team options, in which the White Sox could keep him eight years, by paying him $20 million annually in the deal’s final two seasons. Bottom line: Robert is under the White Sox control through his age 29 season.
Chicago did all of this before before Robert took a big-league at-bat. Sure, he was coming off a season in which he was the minor league player of the year. Granted, this accolade doesn’t guarantee success, but the White Sox were clearly uber confident.
From Robert’s viewpoint, turning down this kind of money would’ve been hard. What if he got injured. What if he would’ve gone through a slump. There was fifty million reasons to sign the extension with no questions asked.
It’s the deal we all wish the Indians would’ve given Francisco Lindor before he was promoted at the age of 21 during the 2015 season.
Sure, giving myself a PhD in history and revising the past is easy, but in reality, it isn’t hard to do with Lindor. The general consensus around the game by the time there was talk of him being promoted was he was going to be a good player. The franchise had to have known it. Remember, this team contended in 2013 and Lindor was the subject of many trade rumors. The Indians stood their ground though, not wanting to give what could be a cornerstone piece of their future.
It turns out “good” would be underselling the 2011 first-round pick. When Lindor got to the big leagues, he all of a sudden started to hit for power. It turns out he’s a once-in-a-generation talent whose poised to sign one of the richest deals in MLB history once he hits free agency after the 2021 season.
During the early to mid-1990s, the Indians set the trend of locking up young players to multi-year deals to entice them to sign. The front office knew they wouldn’t be able to lure free agents, so this tactic would buy out the first year or two of free agency and keep the player around a little longer. Other teams followed the blueprint.
The Indians employed the tactic after their run to the 2016 World Series. They locked up Jose Ramirez to a team-friendly deal, and they also made a play for Lindor, reportedly worth $100 million. The Tribe’s owners have a reputation of being fiscally conservative, but they shed ponied up here, offering A LOT of money to a kid who had about 1 1/2 years of service under his belt.
It was already too late. Lindor wisely declined, and he’ll likely get three times that on the open market.
dark. Next. Trade chatter: Lindor would cost Yankees a ton
If only the front office had thought as progressively as they had in the early 1990s and locked up Lindor before he put on an Indians uniform. If Robert pans out, and it sure looks like he will, the copycats will come out, this time, emulating the Sox, and not the Tribe.