Sox trade Andrew Vaughn to acquire Aaron Civale

[kitekrazy]

Vaughn and Montgomery got much better after leaving Charlotte...........makes me wonder

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

9 hours ago, Tony said:

We’re getting to the point where this isn’t just a streak with Vaughn

 

Another lefty last night for the homer. Crazy how many lefties He's seen since he went to Milwaukee.

[Quin]

Folks, I think it's time to ask ourselves: Was Vaughn capable of being the best Sox first baseman since Frank? I worship Paulie and Abreu, but in Milwaukee, Vaughn's bat is showing a lot of OOMPH. It makes me question if the Sox can develop OOMPH (a better indicator than WAR).

I think they should trade back for him. Maybe give the Brewers that struggling lefty they drafted.

[JoeC]

31 minutes ago, Quin said:

Folks, I think it's time to ask ourselves: Was Vaughn capable of being the best Sox first baseman since Frank? I worship Paulie and Abreu, but in Milwaukee, Vaughn's bat is showing a lot of OOMPH. It makes me question if the Sox can develop OOMPH (a better indicator than WAR).

I think they should trade back for him. Maybe give the Brewers that struggling lefty they drafted.

Maybe it's not the talent of the players, but the ability of the development and coaching staff to maximize that talent.

[Tony]

7 hours ago, nrockway said:

I think it's a streak. He's going to finish the season at or below his career averages and negative WAR, won't he? The law of averages is undefeated. It's magic. He didn't suddenly become a superstar by moving 80 miles north. I doubt he woke up one day and said to himself, "I'd prefer to make $10 million dollars instead of 0 dollars -- I'm going to start trying at my job". Maybe a little bit, it was probably a wake up call, but at the end of the day, we've pretty much seen what kind of player he is...a pretty good player that can probably show a little more than what what we saw in Chicago. But he probably isn't an all-star or a top 50 hitter. He's done enough to have his option picked up, which is great. I'd take Pseudo-Vaughn over Rhys Hoskins at half the cost.

But it's 106 plate appearances with Milwaukee vs 2451 with us. It isn't really a sample size. He's facing an atypical amount of lefties. It's random. His stats were bound to average out and he seems to be in a really good environment for him. Watching him this year with us, it's not like he regressed. He looked the same. He was unlucky but pretty much the same guy. I'm not really watching the Brewers, but is he doing anything different? It might be a confidence/mental thing, but can that be sustained over the life of a post-arbitration contract?

We're seeing that 'deadline superstar' Eugenio Suarez is going to average out to a slightly above average hitter in line with his highly variable career averages, as such there's probably a reason he didn't net a huge return and why the Yankees didn't bother to give up anything for him and might've even preferred Ryan McMahon (who has been marginally better than Eugene, a whole 0.9 bWAR better since the trade).

These stats are very much influenced by minor perturbations, is there any actual reason to believe that Vaughn is a different player?  To his credit, he's hitting a lot of bombs not in line with his career averages. Is there evidence to suggest he can sustain it? I think to myself: I've watched him play ball for several years, is he all of a sudden "that guy"? Is team chemistry infectious like it was when Texas won the World Series?

I suspect nobody really knows what they're talking about in this sport (besides the people at FutureSox, shout out, lucky us; J Gonzalez is budding star though), sometimes guys just get hot for extended periods. Part of the reason baseball is the best sport, these things are just mystical. There's no understanding it. The physicists and materialists say the fastball cannot possibly rise, that gravity doesn't work that way, meanwhile baseball legend Mookie Betts says, "get in the batter's box and see for yourself". I think it's a streak. 

This is sounds nice, but you just wrote a lot of words to really say "I'm going to form an opinion on something I don't really know anything about."

In 110 PA's, he's dropped his K% from 22.3% with the Sox in 2025 to 14.5% with the Brewers. His BB% is 10.0 with the Brewers, was 3.6 with the Sox. He's being more selective at the plate. His launch angle is also significantly lower with the Brewers than it was with the Sox, with indicates a change in approach. 

No one, including myself, believe Andrew Vaughn is now a 1.000 OPS guy for the rest of his career. He'll cool off. But it's become clear the Brewers are getting the most out of Vaughn, unlocked something in him, and he's helped them tremendously achieve the best record in baseball at this point. And I would expect him to be a key contributor moving forward for the Brewers, something he wasn't with the Sox. 

I'm not upset the Sox moved on, it clearly wasn't working here. Vaughn ended his Sox career with a -0.5 career WAR over 2400 PA's. It didn't work. But it's frustrating to see another organization, an organization that is light years better than the Sox, find real success with him. 

[bmags]

I normally don't miss a moment to point fingers at Sox for being so complacent at everything, especially PD, compared to Peers (they only judge whether they are improving against themselves, even if they are still light years behind other teams).

But Vaughn will always be a loser to me. Him getting sent down was still a highlight of the year. I hope he comes back to earth eventually and sucks. He was supposed to elevate that core, they believed in him, he was lazy and stubborn and sucks. Good riddance.

[WhiteSox2023]

29 minutes ago, JoeC said:

Maybe it's not the talent of the players, but the ability of the development and coaching staff to maximize that talent.

Pretty sure that was a sarcastic post.  Greg apparently hacked his account and made the post.  It was so well done, I actually thought it was legitimately a Greg post until I saw that the author was Quin.  🤣

Edited August 13 by WhiteSox2023

[WestEddy]

28 minutes ago, JoeC said:

Maybe it's not the talent of the players, but the ability of the development and coaching staff to maximize that talent.

He had the same coaches that Monty, Meidroth, Vargas, Robert, Sosa, Quero and Teel had. Vaughn needed a kick in the pants to focus, and he's done that. 

[hogan873]

I keep waiting for Vaughn to fall back to earth with a thud, but that may not happen.  I truly don't believe he'll keep up this type of production, though.  Regardless, he was not going to play like this with the Sox.  Maybe it was a wakeup call for him being sent down, maybe it's playing on a (very) good team, maybe, maybe, maybe.  As was mentioned before, we can blame the coaching staff, but guys like Montgomery, Teel, Quero, Meidroth, and Sosa have worked with the same coaches.

All I know is, I'm tired of seeing fans cry about not having him on this team.  He sucked with the Sox, and he would have continued sucking.  Glad for him to be successful in Milwaukee, at least for now.  But good riddance.

[fathom]

28 minutes ago, hogan873 said:

I keep waiting for Vaughn to fall back to earth with a thud, but that may not happen.  I truly don't believe he'll keep up this type of production, though.  Regardless, he was not going to play like this with the Sox.  Maybe it was a wakeup call for him being sent down, maybe it's playing on a (very) good team, maybe, maybe, maybe.  As was mentioned before, we can blame the coaching staff, but guys like Montgomery, Teel, Quero, Meidroth, and Sosa have worked with the same coaches.

All I know is, I'm tired of seeing fans cry about not having him on this team.  He sucked with the Sox, and he would have continued sucking.  Glad for him to be successful in Milwaukee, at least for now.  But good riddance.

If it wasn’t for the fact he’s doing this for the Brewers, and the impact it’s had on the Cubs, I think we’d all be a lot more pissed off.

[Chicago White Sox]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

I normally don't miss a moment to point fingers at Sox for being so complacent at everything, especially PD, compared to Peers (they only judge whether they are improving against themselves, even if they are still light years behind other teams).

But Vaughn will always be a loser to me. Him getting sent down was still a highlight of the year. I hope he comes back to earth eventually and sucks. He was supposed to elevate that core, they believed in him, he was lazy and stubborn and sucks. Good riddance.

Great post and 100% true.

[nrockway]

2 hours ago, Tony said:

This is sounds nice, but you just wrote a lot of words to really say "I'm going to form an opinion on something I don't really know anything about."

In 110 PA's, he's dropped his K% from 22.3% with the Sox in 2025 to 14.5% with the Brewers. His BB% is 10.0 with the Brewers, was 3.6 with the Sox. He's being more selective at the plate. His launch angle is also significantly lower with the Brewers than it was with the Sox, with indicates a change in approach. 

No one, including myself, believe Andrew Vaughn is now a 1.000 OPS guy for the rest of his career. He'll cool off. But it's become clear the Brewers are getting the most out of Vaughn, unlocked something in him, and he's helped them tremendously achieve the best record in baseball at this point. And I would expect him to be a key contributor moving forward for the Brewers, something he wasn't with the Sox. 

I'm not upset the Sox moved on, it clearly wasn't working here. Vaughn ended his Sox career with a -0.5 career WAR over 2400 PA's. It didn't work. But it's frustrating to see another organization, an organization that is light years better than the Sox, find real success with him. 

welcome to the internet. I thought talking about magic and mysticism and the jocular tone might've hinted at that. I know something about a proper sample size though.

I don't think it's become clear though. Give him 600 plate appearances. Let him finish out the season at least. He's done enough to get the option picked up, but we're talking about 1/5 of a season.

[nrockway]

June 2024: Andrew Vaughn slashed .337/.371/.561(.933 OPS) in 105 PAs. Pretty close to the 1.055 OPS he's at with the Brewers in 110 PAs. He's done it before. He didn't sustain it. Let's see if he can sustain it. I hope he does, I just wouldn't be so optimistic.

Edited August 13 by nrockway

[Tony]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

I normally don't miss a moment to point fingers at Sox for being so complacent at everything, especially PD, compared to Peers (they only judge whether they are improving against themselves, even if they are still light years behind other teams).

But Vaughn will always be a loser to me. Him getting sent down was still a highlight of the year. I hope he comes back to earth eventually and sucks. He was supposed to elevate that core, they believed in him, he was lazy and stubborn and sucks. Good riddance.

This is a case where I truly think there are two sides and both aren't wrong. 

He spent very little time in the minor leagues, and when he did arrive, the Sox put him at 1B, LF, RF, 2B and 3B (seriously, he played all those positions in 2021 alone.) On top of it, the environment was clearly toxic, the coaching staff with fairly inept (especially under Grifol)  and Vaughn obviously wasn't the only player in that core that didn't reach his potential. I said for years (and have the receipts) that if Vaughn was drafted by the Brewers, Rays,..etc, he would have most likely developed into a much different player. 

On the other hand, I've always believed in personal responsibility and Vaughn clearly checked out. Even with the numbers I cited earlier in this thread about what he is doing in Milwaukee, his K rate dropping and walk percentage increasing...he's approaching AB's differently, being more disciplined, thinking after every pitch about what's coming next. That is much harder to do day in and day out than saying "I'm waiting for a fastball low, if I don't get it this AB, oh well, better luck next time." and my guess is there were a lot of that thought process from Vaughn during his time with the Sox. Again, that's on Vaughn himself more than anyone, and he deserves that blame. 

I guess the moral of the story is...it's very easy to be jealous of what the Brewers are doing up there, because it's a whole lot of right. 

[Tony]

3 minutes ago, nrockway said:

June 2024: Andrew Vaughn slashed .337/.371/.561(.933 OPS) in 105 PAs. Pretty close to the 1.055 OPS he's at with the Brewers in 110 PAs. He's done it before. He didn't sustain it. Let's see if he can sustain it. I hope he does, I just wouldn't be so optimistic.

That's a good pull. You are correct, he's had a stretch like this before in his career, and the numbers are very similar to those in Milwuakee. He's gotta come back to earth, but my guess is the Brewers won't be very happy if has a repeat performance of July 2024 (.188/.239/.353)

[JoeC]

2 hours ago, WestEddy said:

He had the same coaches that Monty, Meidroth, Vargas, Robert, Sosa, Quero and Teel had. Vaughn needed a kick in the pants to focus, and he's done that. 

...or sometimes we need to acknowledge that what's going to work on Montgomery, Robert, Frank Thomas, or whomever else isn't necessarily going to work on Andrew Vaughn, Luis Robert, etc.

This gets back to a discussion that @Look at Ray Ray Run and I had about a cohesive drafting / talent acquisition / talent development philosophy and pipeline. If you're acquiring an unfinished player, you better damn well know how to develop that player.

Hell, even Frank Thomas needed special coaching (Hriniak) to unlock his full potential.

Sure, there's some blame on the players (maybe Vaughn really did need the kick in the pants that the Sox were giving up on him), but it's also on the organization to maximize their assets in any way they can.

[Bob Sacamano]

I hate that he didn't work as hard here and don't really care how he does going forward but I love love love that he is currently making my Cubs fan friends miserable. So thank you for that, Andrew.

[WestEddy]

38 minutes ago, nrockway said:

welcome to the internet. I thought talking about magic and mysticism and the jocular tone might've hinted at that. I know something about a proper sample size though.

I don't think it's become clear though. Give him 600 plate appearances. Let him finish out the season at least. He's done enough to get the option picked up, but we're talking about 1/5 of a season.

You both seem to have said the same thing. 

[southsider2k5]

53 minutes ago, fathom said:

If it wasn’t for the fact he’s doing this for the Brewers, and the impact it’s had on the Cubs, I think we’d all be a lot more pissed off.

Nah. I will be honest, I came to the rationale that whatever Andrew Vaughn needed, the White Sox were not able to give it to him, a while ago.  It doesn't surprise me at all that he went somewhere else and succeeded.  He always felt rushed and buried, and I don't know if it was a new messenger, or the quality of the message, but the talent is why a guy like that gets drafted where he did.  Unlike guys like Anderson, Moncada, and Eloy who had nagging and nasty injuries that seemed to sap them, Vaughn never had that.  Plus I hate that the White Sox do so much trashing of their players and ex-players, so good for Andrew.

[nrockway]

19 minutes ago, Tony said:

That's a good pull. You are correct, he's had a stretch like this before in his career, and the numbers are very similar to those in Milwuakee. He's gotta come back to earth, but my guess is the Brewers won't be very happy if has a repeat performance of July 2024 (.188/.239/.353)

It's a bit cherry-picked because his OPS+ during that stretch was 156 compared to 193 now with Milwaukee. Harder ballpark to hit at and hitting is down a bit across the board. I'm not sure if Milwaukee has played mostly at home the last month though or where they've played.

He is playing better. Maybe Milwaukee really did do something (I'm also not ruling out magic/witchcraft/voodoo/pocket pancakes filled with PEDs). I think our players are hitting better in general though and maybe the hires that have been made (Fuller mainly) are helping the Sox to become a Brewers kind of organization. That "swing decision" stat was kind of a meme and James Fegan investigated it a little bit, but I think there's something to it. Maybe Colson totally busts without the additional help. Maybe Lenyn doesn't take this step forward. I think it's possible that Vaughn, like Robert, didn't really take to the new hitting regime. Robert seems to be playing like his old self and not taking a bunch of walks like he tried to do to start the year. The young guys seem to be taking to it though (I say from my armchair perspective. I don't know).

The organizational improvement seems more evident on the pitching side of things. But then the Sox have been kind of good at that for a while.

 

[southsider2k5]

42 minutes ago, nrockway said:

welcome to the internet. I thought talking about magic and mysticism and the jocular tone might've hinted at that. I know something about a proper sample size though.

I don't think it's become clear though. Give him 600 plate appearances. Let him finish out the season at least. He's done enough to get the option picked up, but we're talking about 1/5 of a season.

It's funny because there are also threads about Colson, who has an even smaller sample size here.

[southsider2k5]

33 minutes ago, Tony said:

That's a good pull. You are correct, he's had a stretch like this before in his career, and the numbers are very similar to those in Milwuakee. He's gotta come back to earth, but my guess is the Brewers won't be very happy if has a repeat performance of July 2024 (.188/.239/.353)

I think a good question is once you get past the superficial stats, do the underlying stats support that conclusion.  We can see what the last month has been for him, and it is largely supported by the underlying numbers.  I would be curious if the 2024 bucket does the same.

[kitekrazy]

1 hour ago, hogan873 said:

I keep waiting for Vaughn to fall back to earth with a thud, but that may not happen.  I truly don't believe he'll keep up this type of production, though.  Regardless, he was not going to play like this with the Sox.  Maybe it was a wakeup call for him being sent down, maybe it's playing on a (very) good team, maybe, maybe, maybe.  As was mentioned before, we can blame the coaching staff, but guys like Montgomery, Teel, Quero, Meidroth, and Sosa have worked with the same coaches.

All I know is, I'm tired of seeing fans cry about not having him on this team.  He sucked with the Sox, and he would have continued sucking.  Glad for him to be successful in Milwaukee, at least for now.  But good riddance.

We do that with our own players listed above.  We are conditioned into not having nice things.  Then our next reaction is to trade them before they turn into a pumpkin. Then we regurgitate the same process over and over.   

Edited August 13 by kitekrazy

[WestEddy]

25 minutes ago, JoeC said:

...or sometimes we need to acknowledge that what's going to work on Montgomery, Robert, Frank Thomas, or whomever else isn't necessarily going to work on Andrew Vaughn, Luis Robert, etc.

This gets back to a discussion that @Look at Ray Ray Run and I had about a cohesive drafting / talent acquisition / talent development philosophy and pipeline. If you're acquiring an unfinished player, you better damn well know how to develop that player.

Hell, even Frank Thomas needed special coaching (Hriniak) to unlock his full potential.

Sure, there's some blame on the players (maybe Vaughn really did need the kick in the pants that the Sox were giving up on him), but it's also on the organization to maximize their assets in any way they can.

Of course. Whether Getz was qualified, or "deserved" his promotion has been talked to death. Development was not getting the best out of what was acquired. I found it affirming that as soon as he became GM, he made a slew of changes to scouting and development. That told me he wanted those changes all along, and was using his authority to enact them. They're still a long way off, and a lot of assets are still going to fall through the cracks. 

I find it amazing to look at the history of White Sox first rounders, and during the period between the drafting of Alex Fernandez (1990) and Chris Sale (2010), there was a vast wasteland of opportunity. Aaron Rowand put up 12 bWAR for us, and Gordon Beckham put up about 7 bWAR. That's it. 

[southsider2k5]

7 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

Of course. Whether Getz was qualified, or "deserved" his promotion has been talked to death. Development was not getting the best out of what was acquired. I found it affirming that as soon as he became GM, he made a slew of changes to scouting and development. That told me he wanted those changes all along, and was using his authority to enact them. They're still a long way off, and a lot of assets are still going to fall through the cracks. 

I find it amazing to look at the history of White Sox first rounders, and during the period between the drafting of Alex Fernandez (1990) and Chris Sale (2010), there was a vast wasteland of opportunity. Aaron Rowand put up 12 bWAR for us, and Gordon Beckham put up about 7 bWAR. That's it. 

Is it now if Andrew Vaughn is doing what he is doing in Milwaukee this quickly?