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I feel like the reason they're giving Ash Sobble is so that Ash doesn't completely have an easy time raising his team.
Dragonite and Riolu are handed to him pretty easily and are OP right off the bat
Gengar took a few episodes for Ash catch it but after he did everything was smooth sailing from there. And again is also OP right off the bat
Sobble (and Grookey too probably) are there to keep Ash's journey from being too easy since their still pretty weak Pokemon.
And like someone else said, it's also probably the reason why Gou was the the one to get Cinderace instead of Ash
It would honestly be pretty boring to watch if Ash and Gou had a 100% easy time handling their Pokemon without any struggles
