Major League Baseball’s latest All-Star rosters delivered Miguel Vargas his first trip to the All-Star game, a reward for the season he has put together in a Chicago White Sox uniform after arriving from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2024 MLB trade deadline deal.
Vargas, 26, entered Saturday with a.248/.359/.495 line, 20 home runs, 16 doubles, 58 runs scored, 55 RBIs, 51 walks, 63 strikeouts and a career-high 11 stolen bases. He has also given the White Sox solid defense as their regular third baseman, and with 3.2 bWAR through 88 games, he has done more than enough to justify the selection.
The numbers explain why this moment arrived now. Vargas has become a far more complete player in Chicago than he was in Los Angeles, where he hit.201 with 11 home runs, 20 doubles, 75 hits and an OPS+ of 80 across 129 games over three seasons. Since leaving the Dodgers, he has posted an OPS+ of 101 in 260-plus games with the White Sox, a cleaner measure of how much better the fit has been for him away from the pressure that came with the earlier stint.
The trade itself adds another layer to the selection. The Dodgers got Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman in the deal that sent Vargas to Chicago, and Kopech was vital in Los Angeles’ World Series run in 2024. But the return has not stayed equally balanced: Kopech pitched 11 innings in 2025 and has yet to record an appearance this season, which makes the deal look less convincing now than it did when it was made.
Vargas’ rise matters inside the White Sox as much as it does in the trade ledger. He became the first White Sox All-Star at third base since Joe Crede in 2008, only the sixth White Sox third baseman ever to make the team, and the seventh Cuban-born player in club history to be selected as an All-Star. He is also the first Cuban-born White Sox All-Star since Luis Robert Jr. in 2023, a sign that Chicago’s roster has found one of its few steady bright spots while holding the top spot in the AL Central.
The next stop is the All-Star game in Philadelphia, and Vargas goes there carrying both the numbers and the contrast that made his selection stand out. Chicago gave him an everyday job and he turned it into a first All-Star nod; Los Angeles got the pieces it hoped for, but one of them has barely been on the field. That is the part of the trade that will keep hanging over the Dodgers long after the roster announcement fades.
