Colson Montgomery whacked 21 homers in 71 games last year, Munetaka Murakami arrived as a generational Japanese slugger. In the White Sox lineup’s three-headed hydra that’s likely to produce three separate 30-homer seasons, Miguel Vargas is the member that would have been hardest to explain back in March.
Yet on the strength of a dominant August and a 13-game on-base streak he extended in Wednesday’s 10-4 victory over the Rangers, Vargas now leads the Sox with an .861 OPS, in decidedly non-fluky fashion.
“Miggy’s always had this unbelievably stable offensive base,” said bench coach Walker McKinven. “He makes excellent swing decisions. He’s an above-average contact guy and the damage was sporadic but you saw the high ends of that, and you saw real power in there. This year in just trying to diagnose it simply, he’s moving the bat faster, he swings the bat harder and he’s maintained swing decisions and his contact ability.”
Where lighttower power has been a strength of both Montgomery and Murakami for years now, Vargas is the purer story of what a revamped White Sox hitting department can accomplish now when paired with a hitter willing to remake his body and swing.
To McKinven’s point, the rates Vargas makes contact or chases pitches out of the zone are remarkably similar to when he hit a miserable .104/.217/.170 after being acquired at the trade deadline in 2024. But where he once provided doubles power at best, Vargas has made some of the biggest gains in bat speed across the league after two-straight offseasons dedicated to adding strength. Now he’s a hitter worth pitching around, who takes his walks when the opposition tries exactly that.
“You find these little pockets and stretches where maybe he’s just not being attacked as much, and he’s not giving in,” said manager Will Venable. “That’s just where Vargy has really found his consistency this year. He’s just throwing out the same approach, the same swing every single day.”
With Vargas running an OPS over 1.000 for August while Montgomery and Murakami scuffle, his raw ingredients sound like the recipe for a slump-proof hitter. Since he leads the American League with 91 runs scored, he’s closer than most.
But after swatting a titanic All-Star Game home run that announced his breakout to the world, Vargas slumped through the first 20 games after the break (.188/.275/.363, 26.3% strikeout rate). Vargas elevates the ball relentlessly, which puts a lot of pitches over the fence, but the way his swing path can become long, loopy and prone to popups, reminds Sox hitting coaches of struggles that have befallen their other boppers.
It’s just as the Sox grind through a punishing August slate, the 26-year-old Vargas sounds more like a grizzled five-year veteran (which he quietly is) when talking about finding a fix.
“At this point of the year, you just kind of know what is going on and the way your body feels every day, and you try to adjust,” Vargas told the Sun-Times. “[Hitting coaches Derek] Shomon and Joel [McKeithan] are always trying to put me in a better spot. They have been really consistent with me this year, when we talk about positions with my hands and attacking the ball.”
In a past two years full of impressive adjustments, negotiating how his body feels might be Vargas’ greatest trick. He’s sat just two games all season and could blow past his career-high in games played (138) next week. For a young Sox team negotiating the dog days of August, Vargas has been once more, unbelievably stable.
“Last year, playing my my full season in the big leagues, that helped me [to see] how important is recovery, sleep,” Vargas said. “You want to put your body where it’s 100%. At this point, it’s not gonna be 100% every day. But I want to just feel the best I can, where I’m giving my body that shot to do the best I can every day.”