23 year old phenom Luis Robert capped off a solid rookie year by winning the AL center field Gold Glove Award, becoming the first White Sox rookie in history to capture the award. La Pantera faced tough competition, beating out Ramon Laureano of the Oakland Athletics and Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins. Despite Robert’s offensive swoon in September, his defense remained elite, and he was well deserving of the award.
Robert led the AL in putouts with 151 (a figure that was aided by a few moments of stealing outs from LF Eloy Jimenez). Robert had 8 Defensive runs saved, a .994 fielding percentage along with a 2.6 UZR and a 1.0 defensive WAR. When the young rookie heard the news he expressed his feelings with the following quote:
The rising Cuban star’s range in centerfield will be key in the White Sox continued success as long as Eloy Jimenez, a defensive liability, remains in LF. Hopefully Rick Hahn and Co. acquire a solid defender (cough, cough George Springer…) to deploy the Right field position to assist Robert in patrolling the outfield in the coming years. Luis Robert is also in the running for AL Rookie of the year which will be awarded on Monday, November 9th.
Featured Photo: White Sox Twitter
