DataBaseball
2026
Miguel Vargas headshot

3B · 2026

Miguel Vargas

Age
27
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 2"
Weight
225 lb
Number
#20
Born
November 17, 1999 in Havana, Cuba
MLB debut
August 3, 2022
dbWAR
3.9
3 season(s)
PA
509
AVG
.235
OBP
.343
SLG
.467
wRC+
127
100 = avg

Miguel Vargas is a third baseman for the Chicago White Sox. In 2026 he hit 24 home runs and knocked in 67 RBIs, notching 101 hits across 509 plate appearances in 116 games. His batting average was .235, 3.6% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .343 clip and slugged .467, for an OPS of .810, 12.6% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 63rd of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 90.6 mph off the bat, hit 45.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 12.9% of them and made contact on 78.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 127 wRC+ puts his offence 27% above average. That comes to 3.2 dbWAR — +14.9 runs with the bat, +0.9 on the bases, -1.0 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026.

wRC+127
wOBA.354
ISO.233
BB%13.0%
WAR3.2

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +31.7 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+14.9Baserunning+0.9Position-1.0Replacement+17.0
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.21.2-0.9242526

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP1581323492428.258.369.523.38317.7%
vs RHP35129867154264.225.330.443.34118.2%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 340 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 342 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
12.9%
44 barrels
Exit velocity
90.6
mph average
Max exit velo
112.9
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
45.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
40.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
20.6°
average
Barrel rate12.9%
Exit velocity90.6 mph
Hard hit rate45.6%
Contact rate78.4%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.000.143.217.300.17423 AB.20035 AB.03727 AB.33345 AB.29248 AB.18233 AB.31619 AB.27658 AB.23139 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Miguel Vargas hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations509.235.343.467.354
Bases empty2872455012133848.204.318.400.321
Runner on first11397255151224.258.354.495.370
Runners on2221855112542844.276.374.557.396
RISP10988267391620.295.394.625.423

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20261165091012467126692.235.343.467.233.24113.0%18.1%.354+14.91273.2
20251385691181660656100.234.316.401.167.2619.8%17.6%.317+0.91021.6
2024712373151632557.150.249.257.107.17710.5%24.1%.235-15.047-0.9

Head to head

Put Miguel Vargas beside up to three others.

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Miguel Vargas

Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.