Luis Robert Jr. Walked So Luis Robert Jr. Could Run

If I were Luis Robert Jr., I’d want to run too. The former All-Star plays on the worst team in the American League. He has been the subject of countless trade rumors for years. On top of that, he has struggled at the plate over the past two seasons. He’s off to a particularly rough start in 2025, with a 78 wRC+ through his first 37 games.

At least in 2023, Robert was the best player on a terrible team. These days, he’s one more reason why the Chicago White Sox are stuck in the basement.

So, I’m not surprised to see him running away from his problems – I just wouldn’t have expected him to do it so literally.

A quarter of the way into the 2025 campaign, Robert leads the American League with 15 stolen bases. He also ranks first with 20 stolen base attempts. On a per-game basis, only four players have attempted more steals (although none of them has played more than seven games).

Robert is fast, though not necessarily lead-the-league-in-steals fast. His 28.6 ft/sec sprint speed puts him in the 88th percentile. Relatedly, he has always been a threat to run, but never like this:

Luis Robert Jr. Stolen Bases by Season

The stolen base paces I used in the chart above are a tiny bit misleading, because Robert isn’t going to play all 162 games this year. Still, he is tracking for 59 steals in 79 attempts.

The White Sox haven’t had a player steal more than 30 bases in a season since Alexei Ramirez in 2013. They haven’t had a player steal more than 40 since Juan Pierre swiped 68 bags in 2010.

What’s more, if Robert can slightly increase his pace, he could become the first AL player to attempt more than 80 stolen bases in a season since Pierre. (Esteury Ruiz attempted exactly 80 for the A’s in 2023.) This is an aggressive side of Robert we’ve never seen before.

Whether Robert’s new baserunning approach has anything to do with his slump or not, it’s nice that he’s found another way to add value and excitement amid his struggles. His stolen bases have helped him keep his WAR in positive territory. They have provided some much-needed energy and excitement when Chicago’s Quad-A-caliber lineup is up to bat.

Yet, in order to steal bases, a player has to reach base first. So, the fact that Robert has the second-lowest batting average in the AL. (.186) is another reason why his high stolen base numbers are so surprising. How on earth does a player with only 24 hits on the season already have 20 stolen base attempts?

Like the title of this article says, Luis Robert Jr. has walked so Luis Robert Jr. can run.

Robert Is Walking Like Never Before

Over the first five years and 467 games of his career, Robert walked at a 5.6% clip. The league average in that span was 8.5%.

From 2020-24, 115 other hitters took as many or more trips to the plate as Robert. Only seven of them walked at a lower rate. Only two had a worse walk-to-strikeout ratio: Javy Báez and Salvador Perez. Similarly, only Perez and Báez chased at higher rates (per Statcast).

Fast forward to the present day, and Robert ranks among the top 10 qualified AL batters with a 13.2% walk rate. He has drawn 20 free passes in just over 150 plate appearances. His career high in a single season is 30 walks; he’s on pace to surpass that by the first week of June.

The graph below, courtesy of FanGraphs, shows Robert’s walk rate in every 37-game stretch of his career. Simply put, he has never walked like this before. It’s another whole new side of Robert:

Of course, walks can only do so much for a player with a .186 batting average and a .244 BABIP. Robert’s OBP is more than 100 points higher than his batting average, but it’s still below .300.

He has walked just enough to make his stolen base frenzy possible, but the fact that he has gone 15-for-20 through 37 games with a mere .293 OBP is still extremely unusual. According to Baseball Reference, 64 AL players have had more stolen base opportunities than Robert this season. Yet, none of them have taken advantage more often.

Robert’s all-new daring attitude on the bases is unmatched in the junior circuit.

So far, the 2025 season hasn’t been kind to Luis Robert Jr. He has not experienced the bounce-back he was surely hoping for.

On the bright side, Robert is still doing two things shockingly well. It’s a good reminder that his superstar upside is somewhere in there. He just has to do more than walk and run.