Will Carlos Vargas Make Big 2026 Jump? Three Points Why, Three Points Why Not
When the Seattle Mariners traded Eugenio Suárez to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the return was not what they were hoping for. Catcher Seby Zavala played in just 18 games with a .496 OPS in 2024 and spent 2025 in the Red Sox minor league system. Carlos Vargas, the other pickup, has seen a semi-consistent slate of appearances in the back of the Mariners bullpen in 2025 after spending 2024 with the Triple-A Rainiers, but despite a fiery fastball, the 26-year-old reliever has been underwhelming for the Mariners so far.
Relievers, however, are notoriously fickle year-to-year, and anyone that can reach triple digits has the potential to put up numbers for a big league club, so it’s worth analyzing whether Vargas can be the big-time option for Seattle in 2026 that the team had hoped for coming into 2025.
Three points why Carlos Vargas might break out in 2026:
I. Vargas has one of the quickest heaters of anyone on the Mariners roster.
Vargas doesn’t exactly sit 100, but he does reach it every now and then. Even his (unfortunately common) bad outings contain a remarkably zippy sinker or two that offers a reminder why the M’s thought they had an extra high leverage arm for 2025. With a 97.6 mile per hour average velocity, that sinker was the third fastest pitch thrown by a Mariner hurler in 2025, only behind Andrés Muñoz’ four-seamer (98.4 miles per hour) and sinker (97.8 miles per hour).
Among all four-seamers and sinkers in 2025, batters had a .662 OPS against those thrown 97 miles an hour or more, but a .790 OPS against those slower than 97 miles an hour. Hitters had a .700 OPS against Vargas’ sinker, more than the average sinker, but still a bit lower than the league average OPS. For what it’s worth, Fangraphs likes his sinker, giving it a Stuff+ of 116 (meaning that it is 16 percent better than average) based on its physical characteristics like velocity and movement.
There’s a fair amount of other peripherals that look good for Vargas’ sinker, too. Hitters had an 88.5 mile per hour average exit velocity against Vargas’ sinker and a 38.7 percent hard hit rate, both below average for the guys in the box.
II. Vargas’ 57.1 percent ground ball rate is 95th percentile in MLB.
Sinkerballers are well-known for their ground ball propensity, and Vargas is no different. 57.1 percent of the time that batters made contact against Vargas, they hit the ball on the ground, a higher grounder rate for Vargas than 95 percent of all qualified pitchers. Since grounders are more likely to find the glove of a fielder than line drives and can’t become round-trippers like fly balls, it’s the best kind of contact a pitcher can hope for.
The ground ball rate on Vargas’ sinker, of course, was higher at 64.7 percent, but his cutter and slider - his other two commonly used pitches - had notable ground ball rates of 48.3 percent and 42.9 percent, respectively.
III. Both StatCast and Fangraphs like Vargas’ hard slider.
After Vargas’ sinker, which appeared 63 percent of the time, his second most common delivery was a slider that he threw 19 percent of the time. Vargas’ slider came in relatively hot at 90.3 miles per hour on average and similar movement to a league-average slider, but the 18.5 inches of separation between the sinker and slider augments both deliveries.
Batters had a StatCast expected weighted on base average (xwOBA) of .233 against Vargas’ slider, well below both the .316 league average in general and the .291 league average against sliders. Batters’ actual wOBA against Vargas’ slider was .274, but that was still quite a bit better than the league average.
Fangraphs, meanwhile, gave Vargas’ slider a 118 Stuff+, meaning that they rated it 18 percent better than league average based on its physical characteristics.
Three points why Carlos Vargas might not break out in 2026:
I. Vargas hasn’t quite figured out how to control his pitches.
While Vargas had a lower than average 6.9 percent walk rate, he also didnt’ strike out a whole lot of batters - with a ninth percentile 16.3 percent strikeout rate - and that gave hitters plenty of chances to put the ball in play.
Location isn’t just about balls and strikes, it’s also about effective strikes on the corners and meatballs over the middle. Although Vargas threw the ball in the strike zone 55.3 percent of the time compared to the 50.7 percent league average, Vargas’ Location+ (a Fangraphs stat that measures how commonly a pitcher attacks the edges of the zone compared to a league average pitcher) was 99 where league average is 100 - just a tad lower.
Watching Vargas throw, he did miss his spots a fair amount of the time, and his five wild pitches and seven hit batsmen didn’t exactly indicate A-grade control. It should be noted, however, that some of the best pitchers in the game (including Mariners like Muñoz) have issues throwing wild pitches. As long as the pitcher is able to keep a lid on untimely wild pitches with men on base, they aren’t fatal.
II. Batters don’t swing and miss at Vargas’ pitches that much, even the types of pitches that typically miss bats.
The often meaty locations of Vargas’ deliveries also mean that the bat is less likely to miss the ball, but even when he paints his pitches along the edges, he still has difficulty evading the lumber. His general whiff rate of 18.9 percent was eighth percentile among all qualified pitchers in 2025, and sorting by StatCast attack zone, we see that opponents’ whiff rates are lower across the board against Vargas:
This holds true even for pitch types that would typically be good for whiffs. Despite advanced metrics liking Vargas’ slider, its 26.9 percent whiff rate in 2025 was just barely better than the 25.3 percent whiff rate on all pitch types across the season and quite a bit lower than the league’s 33.1 percent whiff rate against all sliders.
With Vargas facing a whole lot of contact, he is more prone to the luck of the draw when it comes to where the batted balls end up. Opposing hitters had a .302 batting average on balls in play against Vargas and an xwOBA (.297) considerably lower than their actual wOBA (.327), both of which indicate potential regression on their end. But if he doesn’t start striking out more batters, he will always be at the mercy of this sort of bad luck.
III. Vargas’ cutter and four-seamer still have serious question marks, and his changeup hasn’t seen enough use to make many judgments.
After Vargas’ sinker and slider, both of which seem solid but haven’t been used in a way where they can form the entirety of his arsenal, his cutter formed the majority of the rest of his work. Like his sinker, it comes in hard, sixth fastest in MLB with an average 95.2 mile per hour velocity.
Despite the velocity, the rest of its usage still didn’t stand out all that much. Fangraphs gave it a 109 Stuff+, but it had an overall negative run value, an .870 OPS against, and a .373 wOBA against. A lot of this was some bad luck, with a .346 BABIP against the pitch and a .297 xwOBA, but hitters did make better contact against Vargas’ cutter than against other cutters around the league.
Compared to his 2023 year in Arizona, Vargas didn’t throw very many four-seamers. Although that pitch averaged almost triple digits with the Diamondbacks, opposing batters cracked a .971 OPS against it that year, and the pitch didn’t improve in 2025; Vargas simply took it out of the arsenal for the most part, only throwing 38 four-seamers during the entire season. If he could ever get that pitch to a usable level of effectiveness, it could improve his entire arsenal, but that’s a big if.
Vargas threw just 21 changeups in 2025, meaning that there isn’t really anything to judge. You could talk about its 44.4 percent whiff rate (good) or its 1.429 OPS against (not so good), but the general lack of use means that there isn’t much to go on.
What’s the verdict?
While it’s clear why the Mariners see upside and potential in the 26-year-old reliever, there are ultimately too many mixed messages for Seattle to build their bullpen game plan around Carlos Vargas making a jump forward in the 2026 season. While it wouldn’t be surprising if Vargas has a breakout year, another middling season around the back end of the bullpen is about equally as likely.
In addition to improving his location and hitting his spots, Vargas likely also needs to develop a more varied mix of pitches. Part of that repertoire would simply be a greater reliance on his slider compared to its relatively rare usage in 2025, but notable improvements in the quality of his cutter and four-seamer might also be needed to augment his game.
