4 teams that should already be calling the White Sox to save Luis Robert Jr.

Through two games of the season, Luis Robert Jr. has four hits, four RBI, and two home runs. Yet, the Chicago White Sox are winless. They started the year stepping into a series against the Detroit Tigers, and, to be honest, it's not going to get much easier than this.

Chicago has already waved the flag that would suggest they could be sellers for the foreseeable future. Before the year began they sold on Dylan Cease, sending him to the San Diego Padres in a trade to acquire prospects. Though they clearly don't have a cohesive unit, they have plenty of names on the roster that teams might be interested in hearing about in trade talks, and Robert is sure to be top of the list.

For one, he's still just 22, and he already has an All-Star nod, Silver Slugger, and Gold Glove to his name. In his first four years, he oscillated between average and well above average at the plate but has seemed to land right around 125 OPS+ for his career, suggesting he tends to be about 25 percent better than the typical batter.

He was also third among all outfielders in outs above average last year. Assuming he can keep that level of play up, he's a great two-way player, an All-Star caliber player shoved away on a team that won't win many games. He's the exact kind of player you expect to see traded.

The case against a trade is, of course, that the Sox would eventually like to win games again, and Robert could help them do it. Chicago has him under contract through 2027, when he'll be still just 25 years old. If the Sox see themselves as competitive anywhere in that window, they may be tempted to keep him around. Certainly, if Robert keeps this up, though, they'll be tempted by plenty of prospect-heavy offers to consider that will make the decision a tough one, even if he is a top-tier outfielder.

Cleveland Guardians

Time will tell how the Guardians will interact with the trade deadline. Cleveland missed the postseason last year but got all the way to the divisional round in 2022, taking it to a full five games. A younger team that figured it out in 2022 and then seemed to undo everything it had learned in '23.

If the Guardians can find some of its winning ways again and look interested in a postseason push, center field is a position of interest to look to fortify. That, right field, and first base appear to be the weakest spots if you look at Fangraphs' preseason positional projections.

Tyler Freeman is the starter now, with Estevan Florial the second-in-command (and in more of a floater role around the outfield). Cleveland needs to see how Freeman, who was just called up from the minors last year, pans out with the team. Thus far, he's contributing at a far higher clip than he did last year with three hits already in three games.

Bringing in Robert would certainly be a message sent to Freeman, and maybe a white flag on his career far too early. Freeman has experience at shortstop, second base, and third base as well, though, so it's possible they could shuffle things around to make things work.

Houston Astros

Depending on where you look, the Houston Astros are expected to have the third-to-fifth-best roster as it stands this season. So them adding a player like Robert sounds, on the surface, borderline unfair. But isn't that par for the course with the Astros?

Case in point: They had Ryan Pressley, an A-1 closer. Then they added Josh Hader in a trade this offseason, moving Pressley to the seventh/eighth inning, and keeping Hader for the close.

If there's a weakness to pick at with the Astros roster -- and there aren't many -- it's in the outfield. Center field and first base are projected as the two weakest points on the roster, but with a name as big as Jose Abreu at first, there's a lot of trust that the slugger will figure things out.

Houston will have Mauricio Dubon or Jake Meyers at center field most nights. Dubon has been a bounce-around between big league teams and the minor leagues, never really inspiring at the plate. Dubon's defense is solid, but falls short of Robert's ceiling, still.

Jake Meyers may need another look, but is coming up on nearly 700 plate appearances with an OPS+ of 88. So far, it looks like there's not much there that would strongly prohibit the Astros from looking at upgrades.

The Astros will be really good in 2024 without making any further moves. Look at how they've operated the last several years, though. Houston has seldom been content with even well-built teams. Expect them to see if they have upgrade options for the outfield this trade deadline, barring injuries that create other holes to try to fill.

St. Louis Cardinals

Are the St. Louis Cardinals about to seriously regret letting go of Tyler O'Neill? Most fans wouldn't have hesitated at the Cardinals sending him to the Boston Red Sox in a trade this offseason after lingering injuries kept him from seeing the field or reaching his full potential for much of his Cardinals career.

It's still early, but O'Neill is looking pretty good in a Red Sox uniform. In two games, he already has two hits and an RBI, plus a front-flip throw!

Regardless of the O'Neill part of the equation, the truth is that the Cardinals didn't do much to backfill the outfield after letting him go. Victor Scott II is an unknown, and Tommy Edman has been around average offensively. Could you imagine what bringing Robert down I-55 a few hours would do for the Cardinals?

St. Louis has not had a player in the outfield as exciting as Robert in recent memory. They've had excellent two-way infielders like Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, but the closest thing they had to two-way excellence in the outfield the last few years was Harrison Bader. And... they traded him away.

St. Louis has been apparently content to invest more in the infield and pitching, but maybe now it's time to make a big splash in the outfield.

Philadelphia Phillies

According to Fangraphs' preseason depth chart projections, the Phillies positionally will play out like so:

• RF: 0.6
• LF: 1.1
• CF: 1.9
• 3B: 2.1
• 2B: 2.7
• C: 2.7
• 2B: 3.7
• SS: 4.6

We soon get to see how real these predictive projections are as games get going, but the outifled situation for the Phillies looks quite dire. That makes some sense, considering they made a massive investment in Bryce Harper, who underwent Tommy John and as such had to pivot to first base.

Now, the outfield is manned by Brandon Marsh, Johan Rojas, and Nick Castellanos left to right. Castellanos is projected at 0.5 WAR, one would expect he reaches far higher than that based on postseason heroics alone last year. Marsh is also projected for 0.5, and has a higher ceiling, too, though he's less of a boom potential than Castellanos.

Rojas, projected at 0.7, might be the most improvable of the trio, if we're talking about swapping in Robert. His projected 4.0 WAR per FanGraphs is higher than the three Phils' outfielders combined. If he's on the table, it might be worth it to add him and just figure out the details later.