Mets' Luis Robert Jr. walk-off home run may have masked a problem

There are two ways to look at Luis Robert Jr.'s walk-off home run from Saturday night.

Either -- it wakes Robert up after a slow start to the season, or it masks a serious problem for the New York Mets' centerfielder.

Robert has been bumpy at the plate each of the past two seasons with the Chicago White Sox, but the hope for the Mets was that getting him to a change of scenery and more competitive team would wake him up.

Even with the homer, though, Robert's early-season analytics are bad.

Robert has the lowest average exit velocity of anyone in baseball with at least four batted ball events this season. 

He's hitting the ball at just 67.7 miles per hour on average.

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Robert is also pounding the ball into the ground, with a negative-9.5 degree launch angle.

The home run wasn't even crushed too much -- 94.2 MPH was just enough to get it out of the ballpark.

It's obviously a great moment that may awaken Robert going forward after just a slow start to the season in an admittedly very small sample size. 

But if Robert stays cold, keep an eye on his exit velocity and his launch angle. Robert has the tools to do great things, but he has to execute well in the box to get to those good outcomes, or it may look like more struggles going forward.

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