On July 28, 2024, the Dodgers beat Houston 6-2, improving their record to 63-44. Miguel Vargas didn’t play in that game and would never play for the Dodgers again. The next day, the Dodgers traded him to the White Sox, who lost in Kansas City, dropping to 27-82. The Dodgers went on to win the World Series, and the White Sox set a modern record for wretchedness.
Vargas hadn’t played much with the Dodgers, appearing in only 30 games with a 0.2 WAR. But still, he was on a great team, one that was the center of the baseball world. He got to play with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman. He was part of a franchise that was as competent and well-run as it was profligate, and there was arguably no better place to be.
And then, the next day: the White Sox. The opposite of the Dodgers in practically every way, a team that was in a major city but still seemed somehow cowtown and one-horse and go-nowhere. A joke. His performance reflected and amplified how bad things were: he went on to slash .104/.217/.170, posting a -1.0 WAR and a remarkable OPS+ of 13. Michael Kopech, on the other side of that trade, pitched in the World Series.
Somehow, the trade seemed to make the worst team in the modern history of baseball even worse. The enduring image of the season was Vargas sitting in the dugout, looking miserable and shell-shocked.
But, I thought at the time…why wouldn’t he be? He was a human being who went from what was probably the best professional situation he could be in to what was almost certainly the worst. It wasn’t just the record and the futility. The White Sox had just slammed their contention window shut with nothing to show for it except a laundry list of failed can’t-miss prospects, all of whom graduated to part-time elsewhere or out of baseball completely. Of course, he was shocked and staggered; of course, he had to wonder if this would destroy his career. Of course, it impacted how he performed. Wouldn’t you wonder the same things? Wouldn’t you be worse at your job?
That, to me, is what makes Vargas’s mammoth homer in the All-Star Game one of the absolute highlights of the season. The ASG doesn’t matter, and the game itself was made even more absurd by MLB’s insistence that what baseball fans want is less baseball. Still, the fact that Miguel Vargas was there, that he came to play, and that he was grinning from ear to ear when trotting to first, is a perfect symbol of this improbable season.
His 3.2 WAR puts him just outside the top 10. He’s got 21 dingers. An OPS+ of 135. And he’s clearly having fun playing baseball, something that seemed impossible just two years ago. Hell, even with a few green shoots last year, it still felt like spring would never arrive, and we’d be in a soggy gray March for years to come, looking for a sun that wouldn’t break through.
Somehow, prospects are clicking. Routine plays are (mostly) being made, and so are plus defensive plays. Scraps from Tampa are All-Stars. High-risk, high-reward signings are all-stars. The ballpark is crowded and loud. An injured veteran is in the dugout every day, waving a magic wand and having the time of his life. I’m focused more on the field than the front office. I can go days of my life without even thinking about Jerry Reinsdorf.
This is where I’ll clear my throat and say “this isn’t a great team and there are still too many bone-headed plays and Will Venable might be a bit too addicted to lefty-righty matchups and the pitching is still dangerously thin and we’re really only a few games over .500 and everything could crash and be in vain and all human yearning, as the man says, is vanity, vanity, vanity.”
But screw that. We’ve had a first half that no one could have predicted. We’re having fun again. Miguel Vargas is having fun at the All-Star game. The Sox once again matter, and belong. It seemed impossible just over two years ago, when Vargas’s professional life was pushed into a volcano. More than anyone else, he is the symbol of this wild rebirth. More than anyone else, he deserves it.
