The Milwaukee Brewers MVP may be a pitcher they traded in June.
Aaron Civale is a useful veteran starter. In 2024, his arrival ahead of the trade deadline helped push the Brewers to an NL Central title. But his numbers dipped in 2025. With new arrivals Quinn Priester, Chad Priester and Jacob Misiorowski all surging in starting roles, he was moved to the bullpen. That led to a trade request and eventual exile to the American League’s worst team, the Chicago White Sox.
Civale’s trade return seemed roughly in line for a 30-year-old, soon-to-be free agent with a 4.91 ERA. Andrew Vaughn was batting .189 when the Sox demoted him to AAA Charlotte — the baseball equivalent of letting gas station sushi spoil. That hadn’t fixed his swing; the former third overall pick and top 20 prospect in all of baseball was hitting only .211 in the minors when Chicago swapped him, with cash, for Civale.
In the month-plus since, Civale has improved slightly to claim his spot in the starting rotation. Vaughn has turned into prime Manny Ramirez.
Vaughn powered the Brewers to a 9-3 win over the Chicago Cubs Tuesday night, dispatching Milwaukee’s toughest competition — and the league’s third-best record — with three hits, a grand slam, and six RBI. In 15 games with his new team, Vaughn is batting .375 with five home runs and 19 RBI. He’d hit five home runs with 19 RBI in 48 games with the White Sox this summer.
Extrapolate Vaughn’s production as a Brewer to a 162-game season and you’ve got a 54-home run, 227 RBI monster at the plate. Extrapolate Milwaukee’s record since acquiring him and you’ve got a 130-win team. It’s such a blistering start in a small sample size that, had it happened before the All-Star Game, MLB would have called him up to the big game (it tends to happen with Milwaukee phenoms).
Importantly, Vaughn is showing up against the team’s the Brewers likely playoff competition. He had six hits and seven RBI in Milwaukee’s six-game season sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He has four hits, two home runs and seven RBI in only two games against the rival Cubs. A player no one was afraid of in the minors has suddenly become the National League’s boogeyman.
Will it last? Almost certainly not at this pace, but Vaughn could remain the mitochondria for a Brewer offense in need of a powerhouse. Vaughn was the third overall pick in 2019’s amateur draft after tearing the cover off the ball at the University of California. He batted .389 with 38 home runs and 113 RBI in 106 games his final two collegiate seasons.
He was one of MLB.com’s top-16 prospects in 2019 and 2020 before his 2021 callup. He’s been mostly below average in the big leagues; his baserunning is unremarkable, he strikes out about 3.5 times more than he walks and his defensive wins above replacement (WAR) in five seasons is a robust -6.9.
Still, the 27-year-old’s batting talent remains; his strikeout rate has dropped from 22.3 percent to 12.3. The Brewers have the baserunning and defense around him to accept his flaws. Vaughn is the latest low-cost addition to punch up the offense in the vein of Rowdy Tellez, Mark Canha, Darin Ruf or Daniel Vogelbach. He’s got a higher pedigree than any of those players, has played a better 15-game stretch of baseball than anyone in the mix and, importantly, comes with the excuse “I dunno, maybe he just had to get the White Sox stink off him to be good again.”
Andrew Vaughn will not keep up his MVP pace. He will not finish the season with his projected 7.5 WAR. He will not have more RBI than games played.
But he could provide the home run power a Brewer team that scores more by stringing hits than hitting bombs could use. He’s already helped transform a team that was 25-26 when it dealt from him and hanging on to a 13 percent postseason chance into the team atop the NL Central with a 64-43 record and a 97 percent chance to make it seven playoff appearances in eight years in Milwaukee. Vaughn will fall off and the Brewers have the talent to win even if he’s batting .225 the rest of the way.
If he somehow keeps this up, however? Good luck, National League.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Andrew Vaughn is proof the White Sox were poison all along