In less than two weeks, pitchers and catchers will report to Spring Training for the White Sox, officially transitioning to the 2025 season. It will signal the end of the dreadful 2024 season, allowing the players who still remain on the roster to purge the historically bad season from their minds.
The Opening Day roster will look very different than it did last year, and as the year progresses, some of the White Sox top prospects will join the roster as they earn promotions to Chicago. There are many variables to how a player will perform in a given season, but certain baseball reference websites try to give their best evaluation on how a player will perform for the upcoming season.
Each year, FanGraphs releases their Steamer projections on how they believe each player will perform in the upcoming year. We will be taking a look at each player’s 2025 projections as we approach Spring Training.
We have recently covered Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Vaughn’s projections, now we move to one of the biggest wildcards on the team, Miguel Vargas.
Vargas was the main piece the White Sox received at the trade deadline in the three team trade that saw Michael Kopech go to the Dodgers, while Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham went to the Cardinals.
At the time of the trade, the return felt a bit underwhelming, but Varags was a consensus top-40 prospect in all of baseball just a year prior, so there was plenty of potential for him to unlock with the White Sox.
That wasn’t the case, as Vargas slashed .104/.217/.170 with the White Sox, adding two homeruns and seven RBIs. This wasn’t what the White Sox were looking to get out of Varags, but he still is only 25 and only has 500 at-bats under his belt, so there is plenty of room for development.
FanGraphs believes that there will be improvement this year, as they project a .227/.325/.382 slash line with 12 homeruns, 44 RBIs and nine stolen bases. While that would be a significant improvement from his numbers last season, that would still be slightly disappointing to see from Vargas.
MIGUEL VARGAS FIRST HOME RUN IN A WHITE SOX UNIFORM pic.twitter.com/YdU3nBl9ht
— Mike (@ChiSoxFanMike) August 3, 2024
If Varags can bring up the average, that wouldn’t be an awful season, but hitting in the low 200s with a .325 OBP would not be ideal for a player who is known to get on base by taking his walks. This is a huge year for Vargas, as there is plenty of competition for at-bats both at third and at DH, so if he doesn’t play well he may find himself out of playing time.
