1 reason to be upset with the White Sox for Andrew Vaughn thriving with the Brewers

Andrew Vaughn is thriving in Milwaukee and that has White Sox fans fuming about the organization dealing him away in June.

The White Sox traded Vaughn to the Brewers for veteran starter Aaron Civale on June 13. Vaughn's rough start to the 2025 season earned him a demotion to Triple-A and the Sox needed a veteran starter more to eat innings with a young rotation that was getting overtaxed and banged up.

It was an easy choice at that time. Vaughn was only hitting .258 with the Triple-A Charlotte Knights and showed no signs of bouncing back. It was time to move on.

The trade has not aged well for the White Sox

In a turn of events few saw coming, Andrew Vaughn has reached folk-hero status in city of Milwaukee.

In 19 games with the Brewers since being called up last month to replace the injured Rhys Hoskins, Vaughn is batting .379 with a 1.146 OPS. He has six home runs and 24 RBIs with Milwaukee, pacing him for 204 RBIs over a full 162-game season.

Vaughn is sporting a slugging percentage over .700 and hitting like the man everyone envisioned when the White Sox took him with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft.

The White Sox never got this version of Vaughn. He was barely a replacement-level player during his 4.5 seasons with a -0.5 bWAR and a career .709 OPS. His career hit rock bottom for the Pale Hose this season with a .189 average and a .531 OPS.

Aaron Civale was acquired with the hope that he would eat up some innings through July and then get flipped at the trade deadline. No trade happened and Civale is still on the roster.

Civale has not been terrible. He has a 3.56 ERA with 1.21 WHIP in nine starts for Chicago. He just threw 6.1 shutout innings against the Los Angeles Angels, where he allowed just one hit. Civale has now thrown 17.1 innings without allowing an earned run since the All-Star Break.

The problem remains that Vaughn is playing like a superstar in Milwaukee when the hope was for him to be this slugger in Chicago.

It is just the latest example of players becoming better versions of themselves once they leave 35th and Shields. However, that is not the reason to be upset the club traded him away.

A better lineup has helped support Vaughn

It is not shocking to see Vaughn produce better since he does not need to be a core piece in the Brewers' lineup.

Milwaukee has Willam Contreras, Christian Yelich, Jackson Chourio, and Sal Frelick to be the main catalysts in the lineup.

Vaughn just needs to be a supporting player like he was in 2021 and 2022 with the White Sox. He had a career-high .750 OPS in 2022 when Jose Abreu and Tim Anderson were being counted on to the be the superstar bats in the lineup.

Vaughn's production started to decline when he was asked to do more in the batting order after the organization moved on from Abreu following the 2022 season.

There is, however, one simple reason for White Sox fans to be upset with the organization given Vaughn's success in Milwaukee.

The White Sox could not fix Vaughn...Milwaukee has

It makes you wonder why the White Sox could not do what the Brewers have done to cure Vaughn's struggles at that plate.

That is the only thing that has me upset with the White Sox regarding Vaughn's heater.

MLB Network's Harold Reynolds recently went over what the Brew Crew did fix Vaughn's swing. It seems like a fairly simple solution was implemented, with Vaughn now standing more upright in his stance.

It looks like the Brewers are also asking Vaughn to not swing at so many pitches outside of the zone.

Such simple changes, and such drastic improvement. The White Sox have done a good job of helping struggling hitters get better this season, with Miguel Vargas making a notable mid-season adjustment to his swing, but they couldn't do it with Vaughn for whatever reason.

GM Chris Getz is proud of the way the organization has made strides at developing hitters. That is one reason the team is keeping Luis Robert Jr. The team pulled him from game action to work on some swing adjustments, and that move appears to have paid off as he had a .353/.441/.549 slash line in July.

Colson Montgomery was barely hitting at Triple-A in April when he was pulled from game-action and sent to Arizona to work on his swing. Now, he looks like an emerging superstar with seven home runs in 24 career big league games.

It makes you wonder why the White Sox could not do the same for Vaughn, especially since he was one of the greatest college hitters of the last 10 years and has such natural ability.

Instead, the organization just gave up on him, and now the Brewers are living the Andrew Vaughn experience White Sox fans dreamed of.