When the Pirates signed Tommy Pham, I reacted like most fans and media. I pretty much ridiculed the signing. This was another mediocre signing. The player is going to turn 37 in a couple of weeks. He looks to be on the downside of an average baseball career. When I thought of doing this blog, I could not wait to get to baseball reference. I wanted to crunch the numbers. I aimed to shoot holes in Ben Cherington’s statement that this would be a big upgrade for the Pirates. After reviewing the numbers of Pham’s 11 year career, I am about to change my mind. I also read about some of his off the field experiences. At least I am going to give this signing the benefit of the doubt. Even Cherington’s statement has some merit, only because the corner outfield position for the Pirates has been so terrible. As you will see Pham is pretty much an average major league player. In the case of the Pirates, this is a huge upgrade. I admit, I did not think the Pirates signed Pham to turn him into an everyday player. At the very least Pham is an interesting signing on many fronts. Let’s dig in on Tommy Pham.
The biggest negative about Tommy Pham is his age as he heads into his age 37 season. Andrew McCutchen is 38 years old. The Pirates are asking Pham to be their everyday left fielder, which is something they never required of McCutchen. He doesn’t have a history of playing many games in a season. In his 11-year career, he has only played over 140 games 3 times. One of these occasions was as recent as 2022. Yet, he did not have a great year, as he finished with a slash line of .236/.312/.374 for an 89 OPS+. Still a lot better than any corner outfielder the Pirates had last year. You have to question his durability at this stage of his career. Last year he had a 91 OPS+ over 116 games with 3 different teams. What makes Pham interesting is that despite his overall numbers, he has had some good stretches. He has also seen a lot of action in the postseason and performed well on the big stage. Last year with the Chicago White Sox he had a 104 OPS+ over 70 games. The Sox then traded him to the Cardinals where he had some history. He did not do well with them. They released him. He was then picked up by the Kansas City Royals. He continued to struggle but in the post season he batted .455 in the division series against the Yankees. In his career, he has played in 37 postseason games with a slash line of .315/.351./.492. The Pirates will be his 9th team that he will have played for. He was a late bloomer not having a full MLB season until he was 29 years old. He had a great year that year with the Cardinals. The next year he got into a contract dispute with them. The issue never really resolved, and it caused the Cardinals to trade him to the Tampa Bay Rays. He gave Tampa Bay a solid year and a half. As Tampa often does, they traded him to the Padres. While with the Padres he was stabbed on October 11, 2020, while leaving a strip club. The wound was serious enough to need surgery. When the Padres tried to downplay the incident, Pham decided to take legal action. He sued the club for various damages resulting from the stabbing. Despite all of this, he had a pretty decent year for the Padres in 2021. He played in 155 games and wound up with a 103 OPS+. He had another strange incident at the start of 2022. Before a game with the Giants, he slapped Joc Peterson over a fantasy league dispute. He was suspended for 3 games. Since then, he has had his ups and downs. He struggled during 22 and 24. Still, in 23, he had an OPS+ of 111. He greatly helped the Diamondbacks in the playoffs, helping them reach the World Series. He is an average fielder in left field. Still, for whatever reason, he is horrible in right field. This is the obvious reason the Pirates are moving him to left.
Certainly, Tommy Pham is not anywhere close to being considered a splash free agent signing. Still, he is not as bad of a signing, in my view, as it first appeared to be. The big question will be: can he stand up to being an everyday left fielder at the age of 37? If he can, there is no question that he can execute at the average big league level. The Pirates only have four other position players with similar performance. One of these players, Ke’Bryan Hayes, is more fragile than Pham. Certainly, until they acquired Pham, they did not have anybody even close to approaching that as a third outfielder. So, Cherrington is right when he says that Pham is a big upgrade. What he neglected to mention is that Pham is only a big upgrade because the Pirates are so pathetic. Pham has a certain amount of feistiness that is lacking on the Pirates. For whatever reason, Pham seems to help get teams into the playoffs. If he can just help the Pirates play meaningful games in September, he will be worth the signing. I think there is a better chance of that happening now, after taking a closer look at Tommy Pham.
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