LOS ANGELES — It was only a few hours after Miguel Vargas returned to the major leagues last week when his journey to get back on the Dodgers’ roster was put into proper perspective.
Mookie Betts hit a leadoff home run in a 7-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Friday as Vargas cheered from the bench, the creases still in his brand new No. 27 Dodgers uniform after just being recalled.
After the game, though, Betts lamented some of his defensive miscues like a throwing error and the failure to make the turn on a potential double play by dropping the ball.
“This is really hard. It’s really, really hard,” Betts said of his transition from right field and a part-time infielder last season and to a full-time shortstop this year. Again, Betts repeated the part most elite players like him left unsaid.
“… The main thing is that it’s really, really hard,” Betts said.
Perhaps somewhere in the clubhouse, Vargas was nodding in the affirmative.
Like Betts, Vargas was moved to a new position last season. He was asked to start at second base for the Dodgers, went through the crash course in the spring and became serviceable at the position.
It was nothing spectacular. There were mistakes but Vargas showed the potential to overcome them. And as he worked to get better on defense … he stopped hitting.
Vargas had seven home runs with 32 RBIs through 81 games in the first half of last season, but was sent down July 9, just as the All-Star break began, with a .195 batting average. He never returned. Betts took over at second base for the remainder of the season.
Unlike Betts, Vargas was not a former MVP at a different position with multiple All-Star Game appearances when he made a dramatic defensive change. He had just 18 games of major-league experience before 2023 and was primarily a third baseman.
“It is a really difficult thing to move out of the position (you know),” Vargas said. “And it’s different every time you move to another position. So, I mean, you have to be able to be as good as everybody expects you to be because you’re playing on the best team in baseball. So I really have to be at that (top) level.”
To his credit, Vargas did not blame the position switch, and the extra work it required, for his offensive struggles. He said nagging injuries forced him into some bad habits at the plate that proved hard to shake.
But back in the minor leagues for the end of the 2023 season, with the weight of the best team in baseball no longer on his shoulders, Vargas hit 10 home runs with 43 RBIs in 60 games and batted .288.
Now playing a less-demanding left field, Vargas said he is in more of a comfort zone. He is having the most rewarding season of his career, highlighted in April when the Cuba native became a U.S. citizen.
“Obviously I come from another country and we don’t have the freedom this country has,” said Vargas, who left his team at Oklahoma City for two days as he returned to Miami for the citizenship test and the swearing-in ceremony. “It was very important (for me), but also for my family too. I was very happy to get it.”
When he stepped to the plate for the first time at OKC after securing his citizenship, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” served as his walk-up music.
Vargas’ road to getting his edge back came in the offseason when he went to work with his father. Lazaro Vargas is one of the most decorated baseball players in Cuba history, helping the country to gold medals in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Lazaro Vargas was so revered in Cuba that he had a 15-cent postage stamp commissioned for him in 2003. Dad batted .322 in an 872-game career in his native country.
“One hundred percent I have been talking to him a lot about that process I’ve been through from last year and this year,” Miguel Vargas said. “Being able to talk to him really helped me a lot.”
Dad and son were on the field together this winter in Florida, as well as in the batting cage. Instruction was blunt. Miguel Vargas said it was exactly what he needed.
“It is a great thing,” Miguel Vargas said. “I really think that at his time (as a player), I think he would have been able to play here too. But you know, (there were) reasons. If I listen to him, I can be successful here too.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts wholeheartedly agrees.
“It (was) a lot to take on, certainly, for a young player,” Roberts said of Vargas’ time with the Dodgers in 2023. “He looks much more free and easy. I’ll keep him (active) and ready off the bench and we’ll see if we get them a start here in the next coming days. But certainly, his overall demeanor is much better than it was last year.”
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There is also a chance Vargas could be sent back to Oklahoma City soon, but in hitting eight home runs with 38 RBIs in just 39 games at Triple-A, he has shown he can be an effective addition when the Dodgers need him.
Not that Miguel Vargas needs any more weight on his shoulders, but he believes every time he steps on a major-league field, he is giving his father a chance to also live out his own MLB dream.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do,” the grateful son said. “I’m trying to put his name out there and try to show that one day he was good. When I was younger, people would go out to the field to watch him play and when we would go to dinner or something, everybody would say hi to him. It was kind of cool.”