The Chicago White Sox have quite a few talented individuals in their ranks who are doing well. Now granted, they aren’t doing as well as we would like them to be doing but some players are starting to find themselves a bit and are starting to show up more for the team.
There are some players that we thought would be stars, right out of the gate, but it hasn’t turned out that way yet. Andrew Vaughn was one of them.
The start of the season for Vaughn has been a rough one. Things just haven't gone his way at almost any time this season. He couldn’t hit the ball consistently, but he wasn’t the only White Sox player who couldn’t do that. The whole team was inconsistent and could not find their mark.
Then things started to get better for the White Sox and for Vaughn. Admittedly, Vaughn was slumping quite a bit and he wasn’t performing up to major league standards. It’s a wonder that there wasn’t any talk of sending him down to the minor leagues to “get right” and return ready to hit. He had to be close to going down to the minors at some point but who knows?
Vaughn has picked things up a bit throughout the last few games and is poised to have a breakout sometime soon. Through the White Sox series with the Toronto Blue Jays, in Toronto, according to Baseball Reference Vaughn has a batting average of .193, has 176 at-bats, and has hit the ball 34 times. He’s earned himself 15 RBI and three home runs.
However, Vaughn has picked things up over the past few games.
We have talked a lot about Vaughn this year in thinking that he would have a breakout season with the Sox. While it may have taken him a little while to get going, it looks like he’s going to finish the year strong and potentially be one of the better players on the White Sox in 2024. He just needs to stay consistent and that’s been a problem for him and a few others in the White Sox lineup.
Vaughn’s defense is solid. He does very well at playing first base and is consistent there. He’s made some good plays there. You cannot question his defensive prowess.
It’s hard to pin a “why” on his slow start. Vaughn is a hard worker, works out well in the offseason, and seemingly came into the 2024 season prepared. But he, along with the rest of the team, hit a huge bump on the road to start the season and are just now slowly starting to get on track. If Vaughn, along with the rest of his mates, can get back to playing well, this team should do better than we thought that they were going to do at the start of the season.
Is he a trade candidate? That’s an excellent question.
At this rate, anyone could be a trade candidate for the White Sox. They have made it sound as if they want to trade away a number of their players to get additional talent.
Now it’s not likely that they will trade Vaughn, he’s still young and he’s considered one of their building blocks for the future but on the off chance they do, hopefully, they could get a decent return from him. They probably wouldn’t get a bevy of young talent but they could get a couple of interesting prospects to help them out.