Minnesota Twins Acquire INF Ildemaro Vargas from Arizona for Cash

The Minnesota Twins Front Office of CBO Derek Falvey & GM Thad Levine are getting a jump on the Trade Deadline a little bit, acquiring 29-year-old Infielder Ildemaro Vargas from the Arizona Diamondbacks for cash considerations.

Vargas was hitting .150 (3-for-20) before getting designated for assignment (DFA’d) on Thursday. We already mentioned he’s 29-years-old but it’s a pretty amazing thing since he was signed as a 16-year in June of 2008 so he’s been battling for 12 years to make it in the Majors. Has he found the right fit with the Twins? They’re going to find out.

Ildemaro has played mostly in the middle infielder through his 12 years of professional baseball but he’s also played a lot at the hot corner, 3B, and has spent some time at 1B and the outfield. He also pitched 0.2 innings back in 2014. He also looks like he handles the bat pretty well. He is a switch-hitter who is better from the right side of the plate.

He played in the St. Louis Cardinals organization from 2008 until 2015 when they released him so he went to Independent Ball in the Atlantic League to keep playing in the hopes a team would see him and like him. 

In steps the Arizona Diamondbacks who signed him and put him in Low-A-ball again at the age of 23 but up to that point, he had only played 120 games above Low-A ball (112 in High-A & 8 in AA) in 2014 and that’s when the Cardinals had decided to go in another direction and release him. This was his 2nd chance.

He spent the rest of the 2015 season with the Kane County Cougars and, in 86 games, he hit .321.385.438 (Average/On-Base%/Slugging%) 108-for-388 with 18 doubles, 3 triples, 5 home runs and 39 RBIs (Runs Batted In) with 6 stolen bases in 9 attempts while walking 35 times & striking out only 16 times. He also scored 62 runs.

Was he a new player or just a player with new life and confidence because a team showed confidence in him?

In 2016, he had a career year. He started in AA. Well, it actually started with an invite to Diamondbacks Spring Training and then he went to AA-ball and played well enough to get called up to AAA in the middle of July and played the rest of the season for the Reno Aces.

Then, after the season, Ildemaro had his contract selected so he could be added to the Diamondbacks 40-man roster! Man, what a year for the then 24-year-old and how much things changed from 19 months before, from released to being added to a Major League Baseball team’s 40-man.

I like looking at stats because you can see improvement from level to level and year to year. In 2017, you can see Vargas starts to gain some power because his extra-base hits went from 36 in 2016 in 133 games to 49 in 115 games in the minors. He also received The Call and made his MLB debut on June 29th, 2017. Unfortunately, he was optioned 4 days later then he had an injury that kept him out for a couple of weeks but he came back and went on a tear for 24 games to earn another callup and finished the season with the big club.

Since then he’s progressed somewhat slowly making that trek from AAA to the big club more and more, getting a late callup in 2018 to making the club to begin 2019 but being optioned down and called back up twice but playing in 92 big league games.

He was probably an easy bet to make Arizona’s 60-Man Player Pool and the 30-man roster but he was out of options so when they tried to assign him to the minors via DFA, the Twins may have had their eyes on him to have another option for their 28-man roster.

The Twins will make a roster move later to make room for Vargas.

Quotes from Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli from this Pioneer Press article from Betsy Helfand:
While the move seems relatively minor, it does bring about a bigger question: Is this move in any way a reaction to third baseman Josh Donaldson’s calf injury?

“So, no,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “This is a player that I believe, as a whole, we really liked. A guy that we probably would be looking into acquiring regardless of what was going on at this moment. … It’s more about the ability of the player than the circumstances of our season.”

Baldelli said reports coming in from Arizona told them that Vargas would fit in well with the clubhouse. He described him as a versatile infielder with a good contact bat.

“You add that all up, he looks like an interesting guy and a guy that can complement our group in a lot of different ways,” Baldelli said.

Also, Minnesota Twins turtle, UTIL Willians Astudillo, has been reinstated from the Injured List and sent to the Twins Alternate Training Site in St. Paul but it sounds like he could be ready soon if he’s needed.

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