Major League Baseball

How is Dodgers rookie Miguel Vargas leading MLB in walks?

Updated Apr. 5, 2023 6:26 p.m. ET

LOS ANGELES — Miguel Vargas began spring training with strict instruction from Dodgers staffers not to swing.

The strategy was in place to allow his fractured pinky to continue to heal, but it also worked surprisingly well for a secondary goal: It got Vargas on base more often than many of his swinging peers. In the 12 Cactus League plate appearances in which he was not permitted to swing, Vargas drew four walks.

Five games into his 2023 season, the rookie second baseman has continued to practice patience at a nearly unprecedented rate. Vargas has walked in half of his first 18 plate appearances. Perhaps even more impressive, he has swung at just one pitch outside the strike zone, according to Statcast data published by FanGraphs.com. Entering play Tuesday, his 2.1% chase rate was by far the best in baseball, one-fifth the rate of the second-best hitter. Juan Soto led qualified hitters across the sport with a 15.8% rate last year.

Vargas, 23, did not play during the Dodgers’ 5-2 victory over the Rockies on Tuesday because of right thumb soreness after he was hit by a pitch Monday. (That HBP means his 2023 OBP is a cool .722 despite just three hits.) The Dodgers (4-2) hope to have him in their lineup for their first road game of the year, Thursday in Arizona.

Five games is far from enough to draw any significant conclusions, but we know both that Vargas has been exceptionally patient and that his restraint has delivered results. We also know that Vargas has been patient in his past — just not during his brief big-league stint last year, when he walked only twice in 50 plate appearances and chased pitches at a 25.9% rate.

Scouting reports have long pegged him as in control of the strike zone. Over the 520 Triple-A plate appearances that predated his MLB debut, Vargas walked 71 times, just five fewer times than he struck out. He was a little less patient during previous minor-league stops, but never exceptionally aggressive.

Vargas’ father, Cuban baseball legend Lázaro Vargas, walked in 15.4% of his Cuban National Series plate appearances, as tabulated by Baseball-Reference.com, and struck out at far less than half of that rate. Miguel Vargas has on many occasions noted his father’s outsized influence on his hitting approach.

If the younger Vargas flirts with a walk rate anywhere near his father’s, or a season-long chase rate anywhere near the range of the sport’s most patient hitters, he'll likely be as valuable as the Dodgers dreamed when they entrusted an everyday role to him to start this season.

And maybe, just maybe, the club’s unrelated spring-training edict will have had something to do with it.

"I think that there’s a combo of, early on, Miguel was forced to just take and see the baseball, taking some walks," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "I think that’s one part of it. I think the other part of it is that he got his feet wet, and so he’s just more not hair-on-fire in the batter’s box. And I think he’s a smart baseball player."

More probable than the theory that being restricted from swinging unlocked a new version of Vargas is the idea that it might have reminded him of the value of patience. Because of inherent pitcher wildness, data has long indicated that many batters would be better served declining to swing at more pitches. But many of them see aggressiveness as integral to their success. Vargas swung at 32% of the first pitches he saw last season, about double his rate so far this season.

"He swung the bat more, didn’t walk as much in the minors," Roberts said. "But I think he understands the value of 90 feet, taking walks, swinging at strikes, taking balls, and I think that combo has led to that, and he’s been fantastic."

The Dodgers are depending on two rookies this season: Vargas and center fielder James Outman. Outman’s brief debut last year went far better than Vargas’, but both are showing promise in 2023 thus far. If their successful starts continue, much of the offseason concern regarding L.A.'s playoff chances will have been unwarranted. If even one of them remains anywhere near as good as they’ve looked the past week, the Dodgers should be just fine.

Pedro Moura is the national baseball writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the Dodgers for The Athletic, the Angels and Dodgers for the Orange County Register and L.A. Times, and his alma mater, USC, for ESPN Los Angeles. He is the author of "How to Beat a Broken Game." Follow him on Twitter at @pedromoura.

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