Ildemaro Vargas Makes Contact and Signs a Contract

Whereas many of the baseball world was targeted on the playoff race, the Nationals acquired an early begin to their offseason on Wednesday, avoiding arbitration with veteran utility man Ildemaro Vargas. The phrases of the contract haven’t but been introduced, nevertheless it’s secure to presume the journeyman will earn a elevate over his $975,000 wage from the present season. He set a brand new profession excessive in plate appearances this yr, enjoying in 84 video games at 5 totally different positions. What’s extra, the 2023 marketing campaign marked the primary of his profession wherein he wasn’t optioned, traded, or designated for task; other than a three-week stint on the injured checklist and some rehab video games at Triple-A, he spent the whole season on Washington’s huge league roster.

I’ll be trustworthy: when the Nationals first broke the information about Vargas, I didn’t assume it warranted a full write-up. Nonetheless, I needed to do my due diligence, so I started my typical technique of cursory participant analysis. First, I checked his FanGraphs web page. A 77 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR? Positive, sounds about proper. Subsequent, I went to Baseball Savant. Sixteenth-percentile xwOBA? Yeah, that tracks. Then, I seemed on Baseball Prospectus. A 144 DRC+ and a couple of.0 WARP? Okay, nothing out of the… wait, what?

After refreshing the web page a pair dozen instances and checking to verify there isn’t a second Ildemaro Vargas on the market, I spotted this man could be just a bit extra attention-grabbing than I initially thought. DRC+ is just one metric, and like all metric, it’s weak to small pattern measurement trickery. Be that as it could, I can’t ignore the truth that DRC+ ranks Vargas because the fourth-best hitter within the Nationwide League; it goes Ronald Acuña Jr., Mookie Betts, Juan Soto, and Vargas. He’s forward of names like Matt Olson, Luis Arraez, and Freddie Freeman. Small pattern measurement or no, this can be a participant who deserves our consideration:

I’ll go away it as much as the parents at BP to delve into the specifics of DRC+, however one thing tells me this has to do with strikeouts — or, extra precisely, a scarcity thereof. In 2023, Vargas has struck out solely 20 instances in 280 journeys to the plate. That’s good for a 7.1% strikeout charge, the second-lowest determine within the sport (min. 150 PA). The highest spot, as you may need guessed, belongs to Arraez, the one hitter in baseball who places the ball in play extra usually than Vargas:

Vargas has all the time been a contact hitter, however he has reached an entire new degree in 2023. In simply over 600 plate appearances between 2017–22, the switch-hitter struck out 13.4% of the time — nonetheless glorious, however not precisely noteworthy. Even in his minor league profession, he nonetheless struck out in 8.8% of journeys to the plate. However this yr, in his first actual style of semi-regular enjoying time (and his first full-year job with a single crew), his plate self-discipline has by no means seemed higher. He’s one among solely two gamers, together with Arraez, to go 13 consecutive video games with no strikeout. On high of that, his stroll charge is up, too; he’s strolling 6.8% of the time, in comparison with a 4.3% profession charge coming into the season. The one gamers with a better walk-to-strikeout ratio this yr are Arraez, Acuña, Soto, José Ramírez, Alex Bregman, and, um, nicely… Tony Kemp. Nonetheless, in case your checklist of comps contains 5 Silver Sluggers, you’ve acquired to be doing one thing proper.

It goes with out saying that such a low strikeout charge can be arduous to take care of. Even Arraez has struck out 7.6% of the time in his profession, and no different energetic participant has a profession charge beneath 9.5%. However, strikeout charge tends to stabilize fairly shortly, and Vargas has been constant in his method all yr. He hasn’t had as a lot as a 30-game stretch with a strikeout charge above 9.6%, and since he took on a daily position after the commerce deadline, his strikeout charge has stood at 7.5%. What’s extra, the truth that he reduce down on strikeouts and upped his stroll charge is an encouraging signal of recent and improved plate self-discipline. He’s chasing rather less however making extra contact on pitches each out and in of the zone. It’s not a model new method, only a refinement on the margins. He already had many of the instruments he wanted to make contact at an elite charge; he swings lower than the typical hitter and barely misses when he does.

Avoiding strikeouts is a superb ability. By placing the ball in play, a hitter offers himself a preventing likelihood to succeed in base or advance a runner. That mentioned, it’s not as if each low-strikeout slap-hitter is a superb ballplayer. Certainly, Arraez is an outlier for a cause. Of the 4 gamers with a single-digit strikeout charge this season, Vargas appears to have much more in widespread with Nick Madrigal (83 wRC+) and Kemp (77 wRC+) than the NL batting champ (132 wRC+). And but, not less than in a single respect, Vargas has all of them beat:

Vargas doesn’t hit the ball arduous, however he makes considerably tougher contact than his contact-hitting compatriots. His most exit velocity would rank within the forty fourth percentile amongst certified hitters. Nobody is asking that good, per se, nevertheless it places him in an entire totally different class than guys like Kemp and Arraez, who rank final and second-last, respectively, amongst certified batters in maxEV. Meaning one thing, even for a hitter with a .245/.299/.354 slash line, as a result of hitting the ball arduous is a kind of expertise you possibly can’t actually train, particularly to a man who’s already on the unsuitable aspect of 30.

Thus, Vargas has confirmed himself to have two of an important instruments in a batter’s toolbox: He makes a ton of contact, and he hits the ball tougher than the opposite guys that do the identical. Even higher, we could be fairly assured these expertise are professional, even in a small pattern measurement. It’s arduous to faux bat-to-ball expertise or exit velocity. He may not be hitter — not now, and never ever — however he’s a little bit nearer to reaching that degree than you may assume.

So what does Vargas must do subsequent? Straightforward: simply repair his launch angle. We’re in the midst of the launch angle revolution, proper? Anybody can do it.

All kidding apart, it’s true that Vargas hits means too many groundballs. Like, means too many. Regardless that he hits the ball tougher than Madrigal and Kemp, his xwOBA falls in the identical vary as a result of he simply can’t raise the baseball. A whopping 57.5% of his batted balls have been hit on the bottom, and practically half have had a destructive launch angle. In the meantime, his line drive charge is a measly 16.3%, and his candy spot share is 26.3%; league common is 20% and 33.1%, respectively. As Arraez has demonstrated all season, high-contact/low-power hitters must thrive on line drives to succeed. Certainly, Vargas has a 400 wRC+ on line drives this season, even higher than Arraez’s 361 mark, however the latter has hit 4 instances as many liners in simply over twice as many journeys to the plate.

Sadly, Vargas has by no means demonstrated a lot management over his launch angle. The usual deviation of his launch angle this season (and for his profession) is considerably increased than league common, and a better normal deviation (a.ok.a. much less “tightness”) could be a signal of poor bat management. On the similar, it’s honest to presume a sure diploma of regression going ahead. Line drive charge can take a very long time to stabilize, and coming into the season, Vargas had a way more affordable 20.7% line drive charge in his profession.

Groundball charge stabilizes extra shortly, however nonetheless, a 57.5% charge is simply so excessive. The one energetic gamers with a profession groundball charge above 57% (min. 500 PA) are Johnny Cueto and Clayton Kershaw. And sure, I double-checked that I used to be trying on the batting leaderboards. It’s arduous to imagine Vargas received’t get that quantity down with extra plate appearances. For reference, his profession charge coming into the season was 51.3%.

Presuming the identical outcomes on balls in play however together with his common batted ball distribution from 2017–22, Vargas would have, roughly, a 93 wRC+ this season as a substitute of 77 — a 16% soar. If he additionally had a league-average BABIP on groundballs (as a substitute of his .187 determine), we could be taking a look at a league-average hitter general. Sure, I’m cherry-picking the numbers by suggesting his batted ball distribution will regress and his strikeout charge received’t, however that’s type of the purpose; I’m on the lookout for upside right here.

Vargas has glorious bat-to-ball expertise and a tad extra energy than you may assume. He’s additionally a switch-hitter, one other issue that works in his favor, since pitchers induce fewer groundballs with out the platoon benefit. The ability he’s missing is an enormous one, however, in idea, it may be realized. And even when he by no means learns to raise, he may nonetheless have league-average upside. Package deal that with common dash pace and a plus glove at a number of infield positions, and also you’ve acquired a reasonably useful utility man.

Vargas is used to beating the percentages. By no means greater than an honorable point out on a high prospect checklist, he was launched by the Cardinals in 2015 after practically seven years within the group. It took a brief stint within the unbiased Atlantic League for him to earn one other likelihood with an MLB membership, and it took one other two years within the minors after that earlier than he earned a name to the present. In the end, in June 2017, 9 years after he signed as a global free agent, Vargas made his huge league debut. Since then, he has performed in every of the previous seven MLB seasons. He’s already had a much more spectacular profession than most unranked prospects and former unbiased league gamers, and subsequent season, he’ll lastly earn his first seven-figure wage after 16 years {of professional} baseball.

In all probability, Vargas has already reached his ceiling, and his 144 DRC+ is little greater than a mirage. Nonetheless, he’s extra than simply your run-of-the-mill bench participant, and he’ll be a man to look at in 2024.