Leo Durocher, Willie Mays and Luis Robert

Willie Mays’ first manager in the major leagues was Leo Durocher. Maybe it didn’t matter, or maybe it made all the difference in the world, given that Durocher served as parent figure and protector for the future HOFer. (That part of Durocher was long gone by the time he took over the Cubs in 1966.) Is Luis Robert the next Mays? I don’t know, but I can say he’s a supremely gifted athlete, one you build a team around. My worry is that Robert doesn’t have the support system in place that will allow him to thrive. In other words, I’m not all that impressed by his .295 BA or the eight homeruns or 38 RBIs or the eleven stolen bases or a strikeout percentage of under twenty percent. Last night against the Angels, Robert struck out on three pitches in his first at-bat against rookie righthander Chase Silseth; to say he looked lost or uninterested would be an understatement. But in his next at-bat against Silseth, Robert doubled down the line. In the fifth inning of a tied game, Robert hit a ball to dead center field that travelled 448 feet. You could hear a collective gasp from the crowd the second Robert connected off of reliever Oliver Ortega. A single in his next at-bat left the 24 year-old a triple shy of the cycle in a 11-4 White Sox win. Obviously, I want more games where the hits overshadow the strikeouts. I want Robert to feel comfortable on the South Side of Chicago and with his teammates, all of them. The Latin players help in that, no doubt, along with team interpreter Billy Russo. I just question if that’s enough. A player has to want to dominate the game before he can do so. As good as he is and as great as the flashes of talent have been, Robert isn’t at that point yet. Someone like Leo the Lip could be just who he needs to get there.