Ildemaro Vargas' Unbelievable Month Earns Him Even Bigger Award

Vargas' current average of .382 leads all of major league baseball by nearly 40 points. His 1.063 OPS ranks third in the majors, behind only Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez and Yankees first baseman Ben Rice.

Vargas' six home runs this season already tie a career-high. One more would put him over the edge for a season.

He hit all six of them, as well as two triples and six doubles, in the month of April, and brought in 19 RBI. He became the third D-backs hitter to have four-plus games of three or more RBI throughout the first 30 games of a season, joining Paul Goldschmidt in 2015 and Eugenio Suarez in 2025.

Vargas' numbers have not been fake, either. His expected stats, though still a bit lower than his raw production, suggest he's hitting the ball extremely hard and making high-quality contact. His .350 expected batting average is a 99th-percentile number, and his .512 expected slugging percentage is in the 88th percentile.

An OPS well north of 1.000 is very likely not full-season sustainable, but that does not mean his success in the early portion is a result of luck. Vargas has been seeing and hitting the ball extremely well, with a late-career power surge along the way.

And he's doing it all while playing a variety of infield positions and providing top-tier positive energy in the clubhouse.

"It's so much fun to watch," teammate Tim Tawa said of Vargas to Todd Walsh in Mexico City. "He brings the best positive energy I've ever seen as a teammate. It's infectious, and we feed off that just seeing him play with so much joy, it's inspiring to me."

And, though Vargas' hit streak may have ended, he got right back into the hit column one game later. With a struggling top-order group, Vargas' efforts have been more than just eye candy. He's been an invaluable part of Arizona's team this year.