PHOENIX — White Sox executive vice president Kenny Williams calls Luis Robert the most difficult scouting decision of his career.



Shaking out the back end of Williams’ personal top five gets murky depending on whether you count recommending Tadahito Iguchi and Shingo Takatsu to Jerry Reinsdorf off video, rather than in-person looks. That’s in front of staking his professional reputation on a soft-tossing Double-A pitcher named Mark Buehrle, which meant the 2000 White Sox didn’t need to deal for a lefty reliever at the deadline.



But the top three is rock solid. Drafting Tim Anderson, a lightning blur of foot and hand speed demolishing significantly inferior competition, is third, giving $68 million to José Abreu is second and Robert is first because of a lack of access beyond workouts hosted for potentially interested teams. Abreu competed in the World Baseball Classic and the Sox had other video of him playing high-level competition to...