Andrew Vaughn rated as one of MLB’s ‘unluckiest’ hitters

CHICAGO (WGN) — Bad bounces and hard line drives that happen to find a fielder’s mitt are just a part of the game of baseball. But every season, there’s a few hitters who are a bit more unlucky than most, and one of the game’s unluckiest hitters this year plays baseball for the Chicago White Sox.

Sox first baseman Andrew Vaughn is the second-most unlucky hitter in baseball, according to numbers put together by rotowire.com (The top 10 unluckiest hitters can be found at the bottom of this article).

Rotowire used BaseballSavant.com to find the MLB hitters who have been the unluckiest to start the 2025 MLB season. They based their rankings on three categories used to calculate an average among baseball’s most unlucky batters in the box:

1. Expected Batting Average minus Actual Batting Average
2. Expected Slugging Percentage minus Actual Slugging Percentage
3. Expected Weighted On-Base Percentage minus Actual Weighted On-Base Percentage

As of Thursday night, Vaughn’s expected batting average, slugging percentage and weighted on-base percentage is .235/.460/.317, compared to his actual batting average, slugging percentage and weighted on-base percentage, which is .162/.270/.212.

These numbers translated into Vaughn’s average ranking across all three categories being 3.3. MLB’s unluckiest hitter, the Kansas City Royals’ Salvador Perez, ranked first (1.0) in all three categories.

According to Rotowire’s John Venezia, “The former Golden Spikes winner out of Cal hasn’t lived up to the hype as a Major Leaguer. Take it from me, when you win that award as the best amateur (usually College) player in the country, a lot is expected of you in the MLB. Vaughn has never hit .275 nor had more than 21 taters. But even as a 27 year old, it’s more than possible to say he’s a late bloomer with his best baseball in front of him.

“Batting .162 with a .203 OBP, and three homers may make you think I’m off my rocker. But Baseball Savant has pegged Vaughn as one of the top three or four most unlucky hitters in 2025 (based on the formula above).

“While the BABIP is a paltry .185, take a look at his 15.5 barrel rate (career best), 51.2 hard hit rate (career best), and 91.7 average exit velocity (career best). Though it doesn’t bear any fruit from a reality/fantasy stand point, it appears as if Vaughn is trending towards an uptick in production. A lot of his advanced metrics show us he’s been playing a lot better than what the bottom line is, so at least, he’s a player worth monitoring.”

MLB’s Top 10 Unluckiest Hitters

1. Salvador Perez – Kansas City Royals
2. Andrew Vaughn – Chicago White Sox
3. Brandon Lowe – Tampa Bay Rays
4. Marcus Semien – Texas Rangers
5. Adley Rutschman – Baltimore Orioles
6. Otto Lopez – Miami Marlins
7. Heston Kjerstad – Baltimore Orioles
8. Ezequiel Tovar – Colorado Rockies
9. Eric Wagaman – Miami Marlins
10. Ceddanne Rafaela – Boston Red Sox