Welcome to the La Pantera party!
It's go time: Luis Robert arrived at Camelback Ranch today, ready to get his 2020 season started. (Sean Williams/South Side Hit Pen)
We are one day away from position players officially having to report to spring training. Luckily for the White Sox, most are already in Arizona, and have been for a few weeks, and the team is just waiting on a few more guys before they have the full squad together.
Today, Luis Robert arrived at Camelback Ranch, and White Sox fans got a first look at their Opening Day center fielder.
If you follow Robert on social media, you know he's put in a ton of work this offseason. It seemed like he was not familiar with a day off, as he was constantly posting workout or BP videos. This afternoon, Robert took batting practice, and then shagged fly balls in center field while other players were hitting. He looked like a guy who came prepared, and with the way he was swinging the bat you would've thought that this was not his first official workout and that he has been at spring training for a month already.
In center field this afternoon, Robert was equally as impressive as he was in the batter's box. He was not taking it easy on his first day, going full speed in the outfield and covering a lot of ground to make a hard play look routine. After he was done in the field, Robert practiced foot first slides (please continue to do that and protect that thumb, Luis!) before he called it a day.
Robert probably was the most impressive player on the field today, which is easy for him because he is blessed with all those tools and has the body of a Greek god. Even on his "bad" days, Robert can still look better than the average player.
Yasmani Grandal has been around Camelback Ranch for a while, but he's strictly been working with pitchers and hasn't done much hitting due to a mild calf strain that will keep him out of the first week of games. Today we got to see him take batting practice, and he got all of his work in from the right side of the plate. As a veteran, you would expect Grandal to be more prepared than some of the other guys (even factoring in his injury), but he still managed to impress. Grandal drove the ball consistently, with easy power. Obviously Grandal's defense and ability to make pitchers better will make him well worth the money that the White Sox invested in him, but he's a huge upgrade on offense, too, which was obvious this afternoon.
Another outfielder who had a good day was Adam Engel. He was driving the ball all over the field in batting practice and had some of the best rounds among all participants today. Take that with a grain of salt though, because we have seen this a few times in years past. It seems like Engel always comes prepared and looks good during spring training, but once the season starts we see a completely different player. Engel would be useful as a defensive replacement, but if he wants to have any kind of role beyond that he's going to have to earn it. He hit well against lefties last season, so there's the possibility that he can be used in a platoon role. However, 2019 was the first time in his career where Engel showed he can be successful in those situations — again, he will have to earn it if he wants to maintain a platoon role.
Today was another somewhat quiet day at Camelback Ranch, but the sound of Robert's bat woke up everyone in the Glendale area. Tomorrow marks the first official full squad workout, as everyone on the spring training roster will be in camp. Baseball is finally back, and we will soon get a look at more of the players that Rick Hahn and Co. brought in this offseason. I expect the vibe to be a little more loose moving forward, as some of the players will be reuniting for the first time in months.
Exciting times are on the horizon for the White Sox — and tomorrow will be the true beginning of that.