Andrew Vaughn didn’t do much Monday, and if you’re familiar with his work from Chicago, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. But with how he’s played since getting to Milwaukee, a 1-for-3 showing with a walk counts as a legitimately disappointing game at this point.
How did we get here? And how real is it? Weirdly, this might be one of the most important questions to answer for the stretch run of the Fantasy season, with Vaughn still available in one-third of CBS Fantasy leagues and looking like a potential difference maker right now. Was a change of scenery enough to finally unlock the former No. 3 overall pick in the draft’s upside?
Well, let’s start with this: We’re dealing with a tiny sample size here. Vaughn has been with the Brewers for exactly 20 games, exactly 3.18% of his MLB career. If you want to be generous, he has 36 games in the Brewers organization, 16 of them at Triple-A, where he didn’t really show that much to be excited about – he had three homers in those 16 games while hitting .259/.338/.500. That’s fine – better than what he’s managed as a major-leaguer – but not really out of line with what you’d expect from a 27-year-old with a roughly average MLB career to his name to do against Triple-A pitching. It’s hardly what you’d expect to see from someone about to emerge as one of the most productive hitters in baseball over the past month.
But that’s exactly what Vaughn has been, hitting .371/.432/.686 since joining the Brewers. And there’s at least one way to show it hasn’t been a fluke so far – his .439 xwOBA since joining the Brewers is pretty much right in line with his actual production and would be the second-best mark in baseball this season for the full season. He’s earning this level of production.
How’s he doing it? The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel talked to a bunch of people around the team Monday to try to find an answer for that, and mostly came up with the kind of vague, frustrating answers that don’t actually tell us much.
“The game has humbled him and he’s taken his opportunity and found a freedom here,” was one way manager Pat Murphy explained it. Which is nice to hear, but doesn’t actually tell us very much about how Vaughn has turned it around. But, while the people close to Vaughn didn’t actually provide many details, that piece did provide a few clues as to what Vaughn has changed, and the most interesting comes down to the mechanics of Vaughn’s swing.
Vaughn’s bat speed has increased to 71.8 mph since joining the Brewers from around 70 mph before the trade. Despite the faster swing, Vaughn’s swing length is actually down. Swing speed and swing length are typically inversely correlated, where a faster swing tends to also be a longer swing. But Vaughn has managed to increase his bat speed without increasing the distance the bat travels, which has helped him meet the ball further out in front of the plate, leading to 23% of his batted balls being hit in the air and to the pull side since joining the Brewers, compared to a career rate of 15%. Vaughn has struggled to maximize his plus raw power for most of his career, but that hasn’t been an issue since joining the Brewers.
He’s also cut his strikeout rate from 22.3% to 13%, while boosting his walk rate over 10%. These are all noisy stats in a sample size as small as this one, but they all point in the same direction: Vaughn is making better swing decisions, with a swing that is more well-suited to doing damage than ever before.
Is that enough to say he’ll be a plus hitter forever? Oh, absolutely not. This is the best 20-game stretch of Vaughn’s career, but it’s not like he’s never had stretches close to this good before – in 2022, he had a .441 wOBA over a 20-game stretch, and even as recently as last May and June, he had a 20-game stretch with a .414 wOBA. Obviously, neither of those was enough to turn Vaughn into a good major-league hitter, and this time might not be different. We haven’t seen how pitchers will adjust to this new version of Vaughn and, crucially, we haven’t seen how Vaughn will adjust to those adjustments.
But with the change of scenery at his back and these mechanical adjustments to point to, I do think we have to take this run from Vaughn seriously. I do think he basically needs to be 100% rostered right now, just in case it’s for real. He’s not quite there yet, and maybe those of you withholding your trust will look right in the long run. But the upside Vaughn is showing is too valuable to pass up on right now. Treat it as if it’s real, while maintaining your capacity for skepticism.
Here’s what else you need to know about from Monday’s action around MLB:
Tuesday’s top waiver-wire targets
Luke Keaschall, 2B, Twins (37%) – Keaschall is expected to return from his fractured forearm Tuesday, and it’s worth getting excited about that. We have a fairly limited sample size from him – just 162 career games in the minors plus a seven-game cameo in the majors before the injury – but what we’ve seen is pretty exciting. He has hit .294/.411/.458 in the minors with 19 homers and 45 steals in those 162 games, and then he was running wild with five steals attempts in those seven games in the majors – and he has seven steals in 14 games on his rehab assignment, so he hasn’t slowed down. He should get the opportunity to play every day on the rebuilding Twins and should be rostered in pretty much all category-based leagues, at least. And his ability to get on base could make him a viable points league option, too.
David Bednar, RP, Yankees (60%) – The Yankees gave Devin Williams the vote of confidence after their deadline-day spending spree to bring in multiple high-leverage relievers, and I think he’s probably blown that confidence in the course of less than a week. Williams, who allowed runs in his final two outings before the deadline, got his first save chance of the new era Monday and proceeded to blow it, allowing a homer to Joc Pederson (who entered with a sub-.500 OPS for the season) to tie the game before Jake Bird eventually blew it. The Yankees have no shortage of closer options to turn to, but I’ll take Bednar over Luke Weaver and Camilo Doval because he’s been the best of the bunch as a closer this season and has been used in the highest leverage situations since joining the team. We’ve seen some pretty poor showings from Bednar at times over the past couple of seasons, but he’s really locked in since an early-season demotion to Triple-A, and I think it’s only a matter of time before the Yankees give him a chance.
JoJo Romero, RP, Cardinals (40%) – It sure looks like Romero is the closer in St. Louis following the trade of Ryan Helsley, as he picked up his second save in as many chances Monday against the Dodgers. It wasn’t necessarily easy, as he allowed a couple of baserunners and needed a nice sliding catch by Lars Nootbaar to get one of the three outs, but he got the job done and should continue to get more opportunities moving forward. He’s behind Cade Smith and Randy Rodriguez on the waiver wire hierarchy for relievers, but he might be next in line (behind Bednar, if you’re chasing upside), if only because he’s probably on the best team among the various new closers out there. Romer isn’t a great pitcher in his own right, so there’s some downside here, but the role is what we’re chasing.
Daulton Varsho, OF, Blue Jays (42%) – Varsho came back from offseason shoulder surgery swinging a hot bat, and despite going back on the IL with a hamstring injury for over two months, he’s back and hitting for power again. He homered for the ninth time this season Monday, but that arguably wasn’t even the most impressive thing about his performance in this one; that would be the five hard-hit balls, including three hit at 106.9 mph are harder. Version’s average exit velocity is already a career-high rate, and while I think batting average is going to be a problem for him, the power looks surprisingly legitimate right now.
Josh Jung, 3B, Rangers (41%) – It’s been a tough go for Jung since his breakout 2023 season, but he’s showing signs of getting back to that level. Since coming back from the minors, he has three homers in 10 games, with a 1.094 OPS after he hit a walk-off shot Monday against the Yankees. If you’re looking for a bit of power upside, Jung has it.