You wouldn’t think time would be spent dwelling on negatives while celebrating a Player of the Week honor, right?

(Well, OK, check that, this is a historically-bad 2024 White Sox team we’re honoring a player from, so it’s entirely reasonable there would be negatives couched among the salutations.)

The truth is, in order to prevail in our nightly —> weekly competition, a player has to be pretty perfect. If a starter has a lousy inning, the voters tend to see that as disqualifying. String a couple of o-fers, and that can cancel out a two-homer game or GWRBI.

So it’s funny that in a week that started with Luis Robert Jr. digging out of the “controversial” no-throw walk-off sacrifice fly saw him win a pretty resounding top player honor. And to be fair, of COURSE not in response to any fan criticism of his utterly laissez-faire approach to a game-losing fly ball, Robert was largely energized all week long, at the plate and particularly in the field. Perhaps La Pantera realized that if his embattled manager, Pedro Grifol, backed his decision not to make that throw home, he MUST have been too timid in his decision-making.

For at least two seasons now, and perhaps for his entire MLB career, Luis Robert Jr. has been the best player on the field for the White Sox. Does that mean we hold him to an unfair, high standard? You betcha. But even if you frown at the idea that grading on a curve means the rest of the class is artificially brought closer to the Head of the Class, hey, it also means you’re … Head of the Class!

Luis, we cheer hard for you, and we expect the world of you. And if you weren’t capable of taking on those high standards, we’d move on and find another player to place incredibly hard standards on.

2024 South Side Sox Players of the Week
Eloy Jiménez (February 23-March 2)
Eloy Jiménez (March 3-11)
Chuckie Robinson (March 12-19)
Michael Soroka (March 20-27)
Garrett Crochet (March 28-April 3)
Gavin Sheets (April 4-11)
The Fans (April 12-18)
Korey Lee (April 19-24)
Tommy Pham (April 25-May 2)
Garrett Crochet (May 3-8)
Garrett Crochet (May 9-16)
Corey Julks (May 17-22)
Garrett Crochet (May 23-30)
Paul DeJong (May 31—June 6)
Garrett Crochet (June 7-13)
Erick Fedde (June 14-21)
Drew Thorpe (June 22-26)
Luis Robert Jr. (June 27-July 4)

Top 10 MVP Standings
Garrett Crochet (121.1)
Erick Fedde (74.0)
The Fans (39.8)
Korey Lee (36.3)
Tommy Pham (30.0)
Chris Flexen (29.2)
Jonathan Cannon (27.8)
Gavin Sheets (18.5)
Drew Thorpe (17.9)
Michael Soroka (14.7)

Top 10 Cold Cat Standings
Pedro Grifol (-124.7)
Andrew Benintendi (-45.2)
Martín Maldonaldo (-36.9)
The Offense (-31.5)
The Entire Roster (-24.7)
Dominic Fletcher (-19.9)
Steven Wilson (-17.9)
John Brebbia (-16.2)
Andrew Vaughn (-15.3)
Touki Touissant (-14.7)

With this weekly honor, Luis Robert Jr. FINALLY falls out of the Cold Cat Top 10, while on the strength of several dominant starts against one poor outing, Drew Thorpe storms into the MVP race, at No. 9.

Writer Standings

Yes, you’re reading this right: A recapper has a better-than-.500 record! Congrats, Super Joe.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Mitch’s work, or if you’d like to purchase original drawings or prints, contact him via Twitter (@soxsketcher), Instagram (@southsidesharpie), or by e-mail at southsidesharpie@gmail.com. Thanks for supporting local artists!

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Luis Robert Jr. art: Mitch Ransdell/Sox Populi