The Best Part About Tommy Pham

The second-best part about Tommy Pham is I can basically recycle this post I wrote about Domingo Santana three and a half weeks ago. Like, I could replace Santana’s name with Pham’s throughout it and you wouldn’t blink. Pham, through his first 628 plate appearances, has hit a home run on more than 28% of his fly balls (28% HR/FB); if sustained for another 72 PA, it would be the third-best mark through a player’s first 700 PA in the last 15 years (among more than 600 qualified hitters).

The best part about Tommy Pham, though, is something Santana doesn’t have, and it’s something more than skin deep. Depending on whom you ask, Pham has swung at pitches outside the zone only 19.8% (BIS), 22.2% (Pitch Info) or 22.9% (PITCHf/x) of the time. Those rank, in order, 6th, 11th and 18th among 205 hitters with at least 250 PA — in other words, the 95th percentile (for the former two) or at least the 90th (for the lattermost). In short, he forces pitchers to pitch to him. Few in the game have been more selective, and few in the game have shown this much power this early in a career. (“Early,” by number of games, obviously, because Pham, at 29, is hella old for a guy who barely has a full season’s worth of PA.) The coincidence of his selectivity and his power is nice, to say the least.

The third-worst part about Tommy Pham might not actually be a bad thing at all. As with out-of-zone pitches, he doesn’t swing much at in-zone pitches, either. It shouldn’t surprise you, then, that Pham ranks in the bottom 10 (5th percentile) of hitters in overall swing rate (Swing%). That’s not necessarily a bad thing; at least his approach is balanced, reminiscent of Anthony Rendon. As a corollary, I wanted to see which players Pham resembles from the last five years who had (1) reasonably similar swing profiles (+/- 1.5 percentage points in O-Swing% and Z-Swing%) as well as (2) hard-hit rates (Hard%) above 35%. (This exercise resembles one Jeff Sullivan performed regarding Mitch Haniger.) You may or may not like the results:

When you share a list with repeated instances of Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt, you’re doing something right. All of these players have raked at one point or another — yes, even Stephen Drew drummed up a 108 wRC+ in 2013 — except Mike Olt, whose contact rates were considerably worse than Pham’s. That’s the thing: swing rates without contact rates only get us so far. It’s premature to talk about Pham being elite, but not having Trout’s or Goldy’s contact skills will limit his upside. But he trails them by mere single-digit percentage points, not by double-digit percentage point as Olt once did.

The second-worst part about Tommy Pham is, if these comps mean anything, his HR/FB will almost certainly regress. He hits the ball really hard — his hard-hit rate ranks in the upper 10th percentile by BIS, his average exit velocity (EV) in the upper 10th percentile by Baseball Savant — so his power isn’t really out of the question. But Trout and Goldschmidt hit the ball hard, too — harder than Pham does — so it’s valid to wonder where Pham’s HR/FB eventually settles. His comps rank anywhere from the high single digits to the low 20s; given his prodigious output thus far, I would be willing to bet on a Goldschdmist-esque 20%ish HR/FB. That said, that penalizes Pham almost a third of his career home runs and more than a third of his 13 home runs this year. That makes his realistic power output more like 20 homers rather than 30. However, given his prodigious early-career power, it’s possible he maintains a lofty HR/FB like Howard did and Springer still does.

Which brings me to the actual worst part about Tommy Pham: he has hit only 22.6% fly balls this year and 25.8% in his career. He shares this problem with Santana — it all comes full circle — in that neither of them elevate the ball nearly enough to take advantage of their power. Alas, both have run up exceeding high batting averages on balls in play (BABIPs), which is the territory that comes with having a line drive swing and hitting the ball stupid hard. Given Pham has non-zero baserunning acumen, too, there’s no reason to think his bat and his legs can’t continually propel him to abnormal BABIP marks.

There’s a cautionary tale in all of this, too, by the name of Eric Thames.

We lauded Thames for his selectivity, which he allegedly picked up facing junk for years in the Korean Baseball Organization. We know he has fallen back to Earth, but even through his first 65 games — not coincidentally, the number of games Pham had played this season prior to yesterday — Thames had chased only 22.6% of pitches outside the zone. There’s a realistic chance Pham’s excellent plate discipline regresses in a similar fashion; like Thames, it would seriously inhibit his production. (This is basically the exact argument that Tyler Burch made in his community post.)

When it’s all said and done, though, the good parts vastly outweigh the bad parts. His sharp eye at the plate forces pitchers to challenge him. He’s selective, which suggests he waits for his pitch. When he swings at his pitch, he swings out of his shoes. He doesn’t make the most consistent contact, but he makes it often enough for it to not completely dismantle his potential, and it is quality contact. Sure, he could benefit from the alleged Launch Angle Revolution, but more home runs would likely come at the expense of his high BABIP. Something has to give, but there’s value in the extra points of batting average that a hitter who strikes out 25% of the time typically loses, even if that value isn’t as sexy as the forgone power. He’s 29, but he has demonstrated his core skills for years now. Besides, Justin Turner broke out at 29. Jose Bautista broke out at 29. Heck, I’ll break out at 29!

It’s tough to know what the Cardinals will do with Pham, who once was barely the team’s fourth outfielder. Randal Grichuk has faced his fair share of adversity and legitimately figures to be the odd man out once Stephen Piscotty returns from the disabled list. And it’s not like Piscotty has been wowing anyone, either, despite having the safest profile of the three. I wouldn’t put it past Mike Matheny, but there’s simply no logical way the Cardinals can keep Pham’s bat out of the lineup.

Pham is the ESPN Player Rater’s best outfielder and 2nd-best player overall in the last 30 days. There’s no way to tell, but I bet if you had checked a month ago, he would have still been up there. He has been a top-30 bat by wOBA the last two months; toss in 10 stolen bases and it’s no wonder he has been as valuable a fantasy commodity as anyone.

Don’t ask me who I’d rather keep: Pham or [blank]. It’s way too tough a choice. (Just kidding. You can ask if you want.)