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    What To Make Of Kennys Vargas

    Tom Froemming

    By Tom Froemming

    The actions (or lack there of) from the Twins' front office appear to have thrust Kennys Vargas into a position to be the team's designated hitter. While Twins fans are familiar with Vargas after seeing him in cameos the past three seasons, expectations are varied.

    And for good reason. We've seen Vargas look like a force worthy of an everyday role, and we've seen him struggle to the point it's fair to wonder if he is slapped with the dreaded Quad-A hitter label at some point.

    Image courtesy of Anthony Gruppuso, USA Today

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    Byungho Park is still around, but having been removed from the 40-man roster, his path to playing time is obstructed. Potential free agent targets Jose Bautista (back with Toronto), Mike Napoli (back with Texas) and Chris Carter (signed with the Yankees) are off the market, leaving the likes of Pedro Alvarez, Adam Lind and Justin Morneau among the top available bats.

    In other words, it appears likely Vargas will get another opportunity to prove himself. There are some reasons to be optimistic.

    He's already been pretty good

    Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com recently shared some impressive numbers from last season, highlighting Vargas' exit velocity, launch angle and fly-ball rate. That piece is well worth your time, but even when you take his entire body of work from the past three seasons into account it's easy to see why the club would trust Vargas with DH duties.

    Vargas has compiled roughly a full season's worth of playing time (595 PAs over 158 games) and has a .251/.309/.434 line with 24 HR and 75 RBI. That's not going to win him a Silver Slugger or anything like that, but even if he doesn't improve at all you could do worse than a guy with a career 103 OPS+ as your DH.

    It's a good bet he'll continue to improve his strikezone control

    Vargas entered 2016 with 21 carer walks over 335 PAs in the majors. Last season, he surpassed that total in just over half as many PAs (24 BB in 177 PAs). Given his minor league track record, I don't think that was a fluke.

    MLB: 29.2 K%, 7.6 BB%

    AAA: 23.2 K%, 16.6 BB%

    AA: 18.0 K%, 12.4 BB%

    For what it's worth, Vargas' 66 walks tied him for second most in the International League last year. I think it's a safe to believe Vargas could maintain a walk rate in the double digits, which is something only 28% of qualified hitters could accomplish last season.

    Repeating his 2016 walk rate of 13.6% would put him into elite company, as that's only a shade behind Joe Mauer's. Just a dozen qualified hitters drew walks more frequently than that last year.

    I'm not as confident Vargas will get his strikeouts under control, but it's certainly possible. If he can keep up the walks and slug some more homers, however, it's not really gonna matter.

    Speaking of home runs, Vargas also had an uptick in longballs last season. His homer rate (HR every 15.2 ABs) was almost on par with Brian Dozier's (14.6 AB/HR).

    He had a better winter than it appears at first glance

    Some people have wondered if Vargas' poor numbers in winter ball clluld be a huge red flag. Vargas posted an ugly .179/.329/.316 line in winter ball. While that's not the way he wanted to follow up his MVP performance from the previous season, there are some silver linings.

    The Puerto Rican winter league is extremely pitcher friendly. Only three hitters posted an OPS north of .800 (former Twins farmhand Danny Ortiz led the league with an .813 OPS). And while Vargas' slash line looks bad, he still led the league in walks (24), was second in RBIs (18) and third in home runs (3).

    Again, it was certainly a disappointing performance, but he was far from a complete disaster.

    So, what do you think? Is this the year Vargas establishes himself or will he be back in Rochester before we know it?

    You can find more of Tom's work on his YouTube channel, TFTwins. He also runs a prospects/draft coverage Patreon with fellow Twins Daily contributor Jamie Cameron, Limestone Pipeline. 

    Follow Tom Froemming on Twitter: TFTwins

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    Featured Comments

    TheLeviathan

    TheLeviathan 21,105

  • Old-Timey Member

    • Posted

     

    I sometimes wonder why anyone who has watched these two play feel otherwise?

     

    Well, I don't like Grossman much, but if we're going to heap praise on Mauer for his OBP it's worth pointing out that Grossman did provide that skill in droves.  Even if he also was a butcher in the field.  

     

    With Vargas, I see things to like.  He's a player who looks willing to learn, adjust his approach, and try to get better.  I try not to judge players who aren't given adequate, consistent playing time too harshly.  And with young players I'm even more cautious.  I know you feel good about Max Kepler (and so do I) but if you started watching Max about halfway through August through the end of the year you'd also wonder why anyone would be high on him.  He was brutal in all phases.  Those things happen to young players.

     

    I'm wiling to judge Vargas can't play or isn't a part of this team's future when I've seen a good, long stretch of playing time.  And he's only had one of those two years ago.

    birddog

    birddog 268

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    If the Twins were going after Napoli, I'd bet it were as much or more for his leadership than his bat. I have no idea what kind of leadership Vargas provides, but I like his bat from both sides of the plate and think he will hit close to 30 HRs and drive in 90+ runs if he gets 500 PAs. Yes, he will go through bad streaks at the plate as most power hitters do, but give him a chance to overcome his failures.

     

    He is young enough that we have to find out what we have in him. If Sano proves he can handle 3B adequately, IMO Vargas is the logical choice for our long-term DH. I love our lineup with Sano and Vargas--especially back to back--and hope Molitor agrees with most of us that Mauer needs more days off.

    mikelink45

    mikelink45 17,989

  • Old-Timey Member

    • Posted

    I want Vargas to play.  I see the remainders on the DH/1B bargain shelf and want to run far away from any temptation.  If Vargas fails at least we know we have to move on, if we bring in someone for the scrap heap it is probably just a one year signing and we would still need to move on.  Palka hit a lot of home runs, but his K's are too frequent, we do not need to give away more AB's to a wild swinger unless Vargas fails. 

    jimmer

    jimmer 9,961

  • Verified Member

    • Posted (edited)

     

    Well, I don't like Grossman much, but if we're going to heap praise on Mauer for his OBP it's worth pointing out that Grossman did provide that skill in droves.  Even if he also was a butcher in the field.  

     

    With Vargas, I see things to like.  He's a player who looks willing to learn, adjust his approach, and try to get better.  I try not to judge players who aren't given adequate, consistent playing time too harshly.  And with young players I'm even more cautious.  I know you feel good about Max Kepler (and so do I) but if you started watching Max about halfway through August through the end of the year you'd also wonder why anyone would be high on him.  He was brutal in all phases.  Those things happen to young players.

     

    I'm wiling to judge Vargas can't play or isn't a part of this team's future when I've seen a good, long stretch of playing time.  And he's only had one of those two years ago.

    My quote was about Park and Vargas.  I'm all for keeping Grossman for DH.

    Edited by jimmer
    Platoon

    Platoon 8,729

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

     

     

    He got jerked around by his manager last year, as did several other players. He seldom started against LH pitchers, even though he had a 1.262 OPS against them. And as has been noted on this thread and others, he seems to get benched when he's hitting well.

     

    I think it would be foolish not give him a regular slot, whether that be as the 1B when a LH is pitching or to try him against everybody. Basically we do not yet know what he's capable of.

     

    Vargas' use is one of the reasons I have no confidence in this manager at all.

    And that "problem" remains! With guys like Vargas you have to decide whether they have the potential, and then let it come out. If a player looks at every AB as a boarding pass to Rochester, it's hard to hit!


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