ANAHEIM, Calif. — Luis Robert Jr. has a chance to join the club.
It’s not a big one — the club of White Sox All-Star center fielders, that is.
Robert, who was named American League Player of the Week on Monday, has been the Sox’ best player all season with superb defense, a .269/.326/.559 hitting line and 22 home runs — including four in his last three games after he belted one in the first inning of the Sox’ series opener against the Angels on Monday night. He stands an excellent chance of making his first Mid-Summer Classic in his fourth season at age 25.
The last Sox center fielder with All-Star chops was Carl Everett in 2003, and that comes with an asterisk. Everett earned his All-Star nod playing the corner outfield spots for the Rangers, who dealt him to the Sox on July 1. He would play 66 games in center for the Sox during the second half of that season.
Before that, it was Chet Lemon from the South Side Hitmen era. Lemon was an All-Star in 1978 and ’79.
Jim Landis received the honor in 1962 and Tommie Agee in 1966 and ’67. Ken Berry, a two-time Gold Glove winner, also made it in ’67 but played just 38 games in center, with Agee taking most of the reps there while Berry patrolled right. The only players to start an All-Star Game in center in a White Sox uniform were Mike Kreevich in 1938 and Thurman Tucker in 1944.
Robert won’t have the votes, in all likelihood, but if he stays healthy, keeps putting up the numbers he’s posting now and continues covering the outfield from gap to gap and short center to the wall, his vote appeal will increase.
When you’re good, comparisons are inevitable. When teammate Eloy Jimenez boldly said Robert would be the next Mike Trout, Robert told Jimenez he was honored.
“But [Trout is] on a different level,” Robert said Monday through a translator. “If I can play for a very long time and sustain the level of success I’m having now, then maybe we can talk about that comparison.”
Still, given Robert’s age and talent, it’s not difficult to see him becoming the most decorated Sox All-star center fielder.
“I don’t think about that,” he said. “Every ballplayer wants to be the best he can be, and that’s my case every time I take the field. If, at the end of my career, the numbers say I was the best, then that’s who I was going to be.”
Any conversation about the best Sox center fielders must include old-timers Johnny Mostil and Fielder Jones, who played before the All-Star Game existed. Mostil, who was with the Sox in 1918 and from 1921 to 1929, finished second to George Burns in the 1926 American League MVP voting. Jones’ 32.0 WAR, according to Baseball Reference, is 18th on the Sox’ all-time list, one spot ahead of Jose Abreu.
Current Sox fans also will toss the names of Lance Johnson and Aaron Rowand into a discussion of center fielders. Johnson batted .286 with 226 stolen bases in a Sox uniform from 1988 to ’95 and led the AL in triples from 1991 to ’94. His 25-game hitting streak in 1992 is the fifth-longest in Sox history.
Rowand, an All-Star with the Phillies in 2007, played center for the 2005 World Series champion Sox, crashed into some walls and batted .270/.329/.407 with 13 homers and 69 RBI in 157 games that season.
It’s also worth noting that nine-time All-Star and Hall of Famer Minnie Minoso, aka “Mr. White Sox,” who made his mark at third base and left field, played 70 games in center in 1952.
Robert, who carries on the Sox’ deep tradition of Cuban stars after Minoso, merely said being an All-Star would be “a good accomplishment.”
“If I’m there, it will be something very special because I think I have been doing a very good job,” Robert said. “If I’m not there, it won’t matter. I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing since Day 1.”
