In Year 2 with Seattle, the former fireballer looks to have taken a significant step forward
Last night’s ugly loss to the Tigers had a few redeeming moments, although mostly on the offensive side of the ball, as will be the case when the pitching uncharacteristically gives up 18 hits and nine runs. But there was one bright spot on the mound: pitcher Carlos Vargas announced himself to Mariners fans in a big way, with a heroic nearly 3.2-inning effort where he allowed one inherited runner to score and had one run score on a combination of tough-luck hits (ground ball single, parachute single that should have been caught, ground ball single well off third base that Polanco couldn’t make a play on).
“Vargy, that was huge last night, being able to give us as many innings as he did” said Mariners manager Dan Wilson. “He had so many quick innings because he was attacking the zone and his ball was moving and they weren’t able to square it up, so that really gave us some much-needed length in the game.”
Mariners fans might not know Vargas as well, but Tacoma Rainiers fans are well acquainted with the slender hurler, who was acquired in the Eugenio Suárez trade-slash-salary dump with the Diamondbacks prior to the 2024 season. While trade-mate Seby Zavala got the most big-league playing time of the two that season, Vargas was the most interesting piece in that deal, with a sinker that even outdueled Andrés Muñoz’s in heat and an equally spicy four-seamer, both of which zipped in around 98-99. The caveat, because of course teams don’t give away these kinds of relievers for free, is that Vargas struggled to command that big stuff, a primary reason why the pitching-savvy Guardians, who originally signed Vargas as an IFA in 2016, flipped him to Arizona in a minor-league deal in the first place.
Vargas spent all of 2024 with Tacoma Rainiers, working on dialing in his command. Command is famously one of the hardest things to fix, but the Mariners pitching lab saw tantalizing stuff from Vargas, whose Stuff+ grades out very well, and a possibility to coax him into a more zone-focused mentality. Mariners pitching development preaches that pitchers should trust their stuff, throw their best pitches the most often, and not be afraid to throw in the zone. Vargas took those lessons to heart; he cut his walk rate in Tacoma literally in half from where it was in Arizona, the first single-digit walk rate of his career since he was at Low-A.
“Here they teach you, attack the strike zone,” said Vargas through translator Freddy Llanos, describing the changes he’s made in Seattle not as mechanical, but in mentality. “Always get ahead in the count, go out there and compete.”
Along with the walks, Vargas’s strikeouts also dropped, as he dialed back his highest-octane stuff. His sinker now comes in at a more modest 96 vs. 99. Between the upped sinker usage in lieu of his four-seamer from his Arizona days and the scaling back of his velocity, his profile is now firmly that of a groundball specialist in lieu of a strikeout maven. Contrast the two sinkers, first from Vargas in 2023 during his big league debut season, with a firm, running fastball that has almost purely arm-side movement and minimal drop:
Take that against one of his better sinkers from his Monday night outing against Detroit, which now features a significantly more drop-focused movement profile (and a more useful visual angle, thank you ROOT):
He still throws a hard cutter, at 92, which is his primary whiff-getting pitch, with sharp late downward break. He rounds out the arsenal with two secondaries he throws almost exclusively in two-strike or favorable counts: a changeup for weak-contact outs at the bottom of the zone; and a slider with has plus drop that he’ll throw up in the zone for whiffs and flyouts (and, in one regrettable instance, a Luis Urías home run).
While some organizations tinker with pitchers’ mechanics, encouraging them to change arm angles or change their position on the pitching rubber, Mariners pitching coach Pete Woodworth said that’s not at all a part of Seattle’s pitching development, which hammers home attacking the zone and trusting your stuff. “We show them what happens in two-strike counts” he said. “It’s just that easy. No one wants to believe it, but it is.”
In fact, he says the next step for Vargas—as it is for several of his pitchers—is getting him to expand the zone low with two strikes, and getting him off the plate.
For Vargas, he’s embraced the bigger-picture mentality.
“I’m just trying to be focused all the time” he said through Llanos. “Focused on intent, and how I can stay here, and how I can help the team. And I feel like every step I take, it’s with a purpose.”
That focus was on display last night as Vargas kept the Mariners in a game that looked to be a runaway blowout early on. His efforts saved the rest of the bullpen, and demonstrated his newfound zone-focused mentality and sense of intention, as he competed with every pitch, seemingly without regard for the scoreboard.
“Player of the game,” said Wodworth. “Maybe player of the week.”