Quinton Fesq
Every conversation about Luis Robert Jr. eventually circles back to the same thing. Not the exit velocity. Not the 38 homers in 2023. Not the sprint speed that ranked in the 90th percentile last season. The conversation always comes back to the same word: available.
Thursday in Jupiter, the New York Mets got their first look at Robert in a Grapefruit League game, and what they saw was encouraging. He went 1-for-3 against the Cardinals, ripping a 107 mph single off Michael McGreevy and playing 5 innings in center field without issue. One spring game, one hit, and already the tools were on display.
Manager Carlos Mendoza didn’t hide his excitement, per MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. “If we keep this guy healthy, the sky’s the limit,” Mendoza said. “We’ve seen it, 2023 I think it was when he was healthy, he was one of the best players in the league. The tools are unbelievable, a guy that can go get it in the outfield, he’s got speed, can steal bases, can hit it as far as anybody in the game, as well. So there’s a lot to like. We’ve just got to keep him on the field.”
What a Healthy Robert Actually Looks Like
In 2023, Luis Robert Jr. was a legitimate MVP-caliber player. He hit .264 with 38 home runs, posted a 129 wRC+, stole 20 bases, and accumulated 4.9 WAR across 145 games. He was 1 of only 3 players in baseball that season to go 35-20, joining Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuña Jr. His Statcast profile that year was elite across the board, ranking in the 95th percentile in OAA and posting a barrel rate of 15.4% that put him among the game’s best power hitters.
The 2 seasons after that told a different story. Lower-body injuries, specifically hip and hamstring problems, kept Robert off the field for 114 games combined in 2024 and 2025. His numbers dipped hard in both years. A .657 OPS in 2024, followed by a .661 in 2025. His wRC+ sat at 84 both seasons, meaning he was producing roughly 16% below league average as a hitter.
The underlying Statcast data from 2025 is actually more encouraging than the surface stats suggest. His Baseball Savant page shows an xwOBA of .321 against a real wOBA of .289, which means he was running into some bad luck on batted balls. His bat speed ranked in the 92nd percentile at 75.6 mph. His OAA of 7 in center field ranked 18th in baseball. The speed is still there too, 29.0 feet per second putting him in the 90th percentile. The athleticism hasn’t left him. The injuries just kept interrupting it.
The Plan in New York
When the Mets acquired Robert from the White Sox in January, they knew exactly what they were getting: a 28-year-old with top-10 talent and a body that needs to be managed carefully. So that’s exactly what they’re doing. Mendoza has already said Robert will receive regular off-days throughout the season, particularly during a stretch of 9 games in 9 days that runs from March 28 through April 5. Tyrone Taylor is available to cover center when Robert sits.
The spring ramp-up has been intentional. Robert was the last Mets regular to make his Grapefruit League debut, and the organization laid out a specific progression for him from the start of camp. The goal is to have him ready to play back-to-back full 9-inning games by the time the regular season arrives, nothing rushed, nothing forced.
Robert said after Thursday’s game that he arrived in camp feeling completely right. “When I arrived here, I felt like I was 100 percent,” he said through an interpreter. “And right now, I still feel like I’m 100 percent.”
Mendoza echoed that, calling Robert a healthy player with no injury concerns this spring.
The Projections Paint a Realistic Picture
FanGraphs’ FGDC projection has Robert playing 131 games with a 97 wRC+, 21 home runs, and 29 stolen bases in 2026. That’s a useful player, not a 2023 rerun but also not someone who falls off a cliff. ZiPS is similarly conservative, projecting around 117 games and a 99 wRC+. The model consensus is basically this: if he plays, he contributes. The games-played number is the variable nobody can pin down with confidence.
That uncertainty is baked into how New York is handling him. The Mets aren’t pretending they can get 150 games out of Robert, they’re building around the reality that they probably can’t. The hope is that the combination of smart rest, a legitimate backup in center, and a healthy offseason finally lets Robert’s talent show up consistently.
One spring at-bat says nothing. A 107 mph single in March against a Cardinals starter proves nothing about October health. But it’s a start, and for a player whose career has been defined by what might have been, a start is exactly what New York needed to see.
If Robert stays on the field, this outfield gets a lot more dangerous. That’s the bet the Mets made. Now they just have to be right.
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