The surface results of the opening month of the season are admittedly hard to reconcile.
In his fifth major league season, 27-year-old first baseman Andrew Vaughn is hitting .160/.204/.274 with three home runs in 27 games, with multiple measures of wins above replacement regarding him as the least productive regular player in the league while hitting everyday in the middle of the White Sox order.
In his second year at Triple-A, 26-year-old first baseman Tim Elko is hitting an absurd .356/.430/.713 with nine home runs in 24 games with the Charlotte Knights.
Shredding against International League pitching in possibly the country's most hitter-friendly ballpark at an advanced age is very far from a 1-to-1 comparison to major league production. But even if this is simply the minor league heater of a lifetime, since Elko is still rocking a 28 percent strikeout rate that threatens to elevate upon promotion, it comes alongside meaningful swing decision improvement that has made the Ole Miss legend's well-known contact issues less disqualifying.
"He's putting together all-around quality at-bats," Chris Getz said. "He's always hit the ball hard. He's actually increased how hard he's hitting it, and most importantly, how often he's doing it. He's certainly leading the organization in home runs, and I think he's at the top in minor-league baseball."
As recently as last year, the combination of excessive out-of-zone chasing and more easily anticipated in-zone whiffing typical of hulking minor league mashers seemed like too tall of a mountain to climb for Elko given the late start to his professional career. But it's been an oft-repeated assumption that Elko was too old to keep improving since he signed for $35,000 out of the 10th round of the 2022 draft, and he's been making it look like a poor one every year since.
Hitting director Ryan Fuller said Elko was primarily tasked with curbing his chasing this offseason, but with the notion that narrowing his focus would benefit his in-zone contact rates as well. He was an avid adopter of the White Sox' new Trajekt machine in spring training, and has maintained a steady routine of slightly less fancy pitching machine work in Charlotte.
"He's an intelligent kid and does his homework," said Knights manager Sergio Santos. "He's in there with [Charlotte hitting coach] Jim Rickon and what they kind of do is challenge themselves. They'll have the machine and Jim will mess with the dials and [Elko] will have to make that decision whether to swing or not, and it's definitely helped."
When Elko still does chase, the contact rate is still exceptionally grisly, reflective of a swing is geared for maximum impact rather than variability. It's an extreme power-over-hit profile, and we've yet to see how it will be exploited by the best pitchers in the world. But Elko's in-zone contact rate (81 percent) looks newly playable, and his improved plate discipline has him running a double-digit walk rate (11 percent) for the first time as a professional. And obviously, all these matters are less consequential if his power production remains top of the scale. But that's apparently a question for another day.
"We're more focused on supporting Andrew right now," Getz said when pressed on the Elko or Vaughn matter directly. "He's been one of the more unlucky hitters in baseball. I know he wants greater results for the White Sox and for himself. And we expect more out of him. I know he's working very hard. And our job is to get the most out of each player and we know that there's more on the tank for Andrew. But we also know there are players throughout the organization that at some point could step up and get that opportunity. And you want to make sure that they're well-positioned to do so."
It's worth mentioning that Vaughn's actual slugging has underperformed what Statcast projections based on his batted ball data in all but one season of his career, but it's been a particularly galling gulf a month into 2025. With some of, if not the best hard-hit and barrel rates of his career, and top-end average exit velocity, Statcast projects Vaughn should be batting .240 with a .475 slugging percentage. Even the less jargon-heavy sense that he's hitting the ball hard but not seeing results is something Vaughn is trying to cling to amid his second-straight painfully slow start to the year.
"The results are definitely not showing it, but I feel like I've hit the ball well, hit it hard a lot, hit it right at guys," Vaughn said. "You've just got to take the positive out of that negative. You got out, but you did everything you were supposed to do in the box. You got a good pitch to hit and you hit it really hard. It's baseball. Sometimes they're going to catch it."
With Elko notably displaying the ability to hit the ball where no one can catch it, the gulf between what Vaughn seems like he should be capable of and what he's provided merits parsing. The gap between expectations and results is bound to trigger Vaughn's departure from the White Sox at some point this calendar year, whether via a July trade or when an arbitration raise is due after this season, and healthy organizations grow to understand their misses as much as they avoid them.
"There's some areas in which mechanically, adjustments that need to be made," Getz said. "But the results that he's gotten at the surface level, we know that it's a little deceptive. And so we certainly want him to stay the course and stay hungry, which we know that he will. But we also know that there is some work that needs to be done in terms of improvement. Every stat tells a story. There's context to every single one, but we know that Andrew's going to fight, and we know that he's going to be more productive here and hopefully in the near future."
Speaking of stats telling a story, sneaky high chase rates have been Vaughn's Achilles heel after piling up walks in college, and he's been removed from the larger wave of improvement the White Sox lineup has pulled off in that aspect. As Luis Robert Jr. and Lenyn Sosa could also attest to, it's hard to avoid extreme peaks and valleys while swinging at pitches out of the strike zone more than 35 percent of the time. A well-timed hot streak can and maybe will make Vaughn a low-level trade asset of some kind after some tepid interest last July, and teammates and coaches have assured that some kind of run is coming with the way he's swinging.
"It is what it is," Vaughn said. "It's cold, the ball isn't flying. But you've got to keep that approach that when we get to July and August, those will turn."
Bobby Dalbec and Gage Workman are corner bats in reserve roles currently on the White Sox roster, and seemingly the most regular designated hitter going forward is going to be Edgar Quero's off days from catching. Vaughn and Elko are only diametrically opposed if the White Sox want them to be, and they're only paired in the fan base's hivemind because it's literally the most productive hitter in the farm system and the least productive hitter in the major league lineup.
Moreover, it's hard to imagine any productive Charlotte Knight won't see major league action eventually, after the trade deadline clears the deck of productive veterans and allows for a youth movement. In that vein, even seeing what someone like Brandon Drury can do in the majors would be a more urgent project in the first half than Elko, but Getz put it in more nuanced terms.
"Primarily we're focused on players in our system that we feel like are going to be part of our future, and really their development is the priority," Getz said. "If that means we bring them up, then so be it. Now we do have players that are on our major league team that have been productive at the major league level and help support this team as we navigate this season. Most importantly we want to put players in the best position to come up here and succeed. Obviously there does need to be opportunity and we'll wait for the right time to do it. There are different variables that go into making that decision, but most importantly it's if they're developmentally ready to come up here."
As Quero and soon-to-be returning Chase Meidroth serve as proof of, Getz isn't bluffing about promoting players believed to be part of the White Sox long-term future and letting them develop in Chicago, with some supportive veterans players being purged to make room. It's just that the longer Elko torches Triple-A without triggering a promotion, the more it gives rise to the notion that it's not yet enough to push him into their long-term picture.
