Luis Robert Jr. may have a worthy trade pitch.
While the Mets’ dreams of a full, healthy season for Robert died in April, the 28-year-old Robert is showing he still has some thump in his bat.
Robert slugged a solo homer off of the Dodgers’ Roki Sasaki on Friday, his second bomb in four games since returning from an extended stint on the injured list. Robert’s contract runs through 2026 with a club option that’s unlikely to be used given his inconsistency and injury history. But the Mets will take any production they can get from him for the next week or so, as they try to acquire the best piece possible at the trade deadline.
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Robert was able to attack a 99 mph four-seam fastball from Sasaki up in the zone. The blast traveled 381 feet and came off the bat at 101.8 mph. It gave the Mets a 1-0 lead over the two-time defending world champion Dodgers, at the time.
The Mets ended up losing, 4-2.
Realistically, though, what’s important for the Mets right now is that Robert is maximizing his trade value, or at least keeping it high enough to get something respectable in return.
The team that bites on Robert, especially for any kind of valuable piece, is one that believes in the player Robert can be rather than the one he’s been over the last two-plus seasons — not too dissimilar from the Mets’ mindset when they initially traded for him. Robert put up 5.0 fWAR in 2023, collecting 38 home runs in 145 games. He had an .857 OPS that year. Combined with great center field defense, that’s a dynamic player.
But this is now three seasons in a row that haven’t gone well for Robert. In fact, coming into Friday, his wRC+ was exactly 84 in each of the last three seasons (his 2026 number, of course, rose Friday). It would be reasonable to expect some teams to be wary of trading for him given those struggles.
But Robert could still provide a shot in the arm for a team down the stretch, and this short period before the deadline is the perfect time for him to hold his audition. He got off to a good start this season, with an OPS over .800 through April 13, and this current stretch is important to prove that he can still be productive when healthy.
Robert’s current (albeit, small-sample) Baseball Savant page shows he still has 75th-percentile bat speed and a fairly average .322 xwOBA. His best trait defensively has been his arm, and he still has a 91st-percentile sprint speed.
This isn’t the way the Mets drew up the Robert deal when they made it. But as David Stearns said the other day, they need to do what’s best for the organization at the moment, and Robert is one of the pieces primed to be dealt in the coming weeks. So they might as well milk all they can out of him.
