Tommy Pham, with whom the Mets agreed yesterday to a one-year deal apparently to serve as a fourth outfielder, is not a superstar. Go ahead and quote me on that. Like all players, Pham has flaws in his game, and like most players, some of his flaws are pretty big. He’s not a superstar and not an All-Star, and on the 2023 Mets he won’t even be a regular starter.
But not everyone can be a superstar. Not everyone can be an All-Star. Especially among players who won’t even be starters, you won’t find many caps that are headed to Cooperstown. And for a fourth outfielder on a team with three excellent ones, Pham is a perfectly solid addition.
Here are Pham’s proficiencies and problems summed up: he hits the ball hard, hits for some power, has a good arm, walks a fair amount, and is pretty fast. He strikes out too much, isn’t a good defender, and hasn’t managed to translate high exit velocity into strong results since 2019. There’s his game in a few words: some good, some bad, most just okay.
Pham batted .236/.312/.374 in 144 games in 2022, spending time with the Reds and the Red Sox. The year before, in 155 games, he batted .229/.340/.383, adding 15 homers for a 103 OPS+. He made a name for himself from 2017 to 2019, batting .284/.381/.475 and averaging 22 home runs and 22 steals a year. But he took a major step back during the shortened 2020 season, and hasn’t gotten close to his former self since.
So the Mets are left with what Pham has been in the last three years: a .231/.324/.372 hitter with some home run power, who strikes out too much and isn’t good in the field, but throws the ball hard and hits it even harder. Is that acceptable for a fourth outfielder? Absolutely it is.
Consider some notable fourth outfielders:
Ron Swoboda in 1969 (.235/.326/.361)
Willie Mays in 1973 (.211/.303/.344)
Danny Heep in 1984 (.231/.319/.312)
Brian McRae in 1999 (.221/.320/.349)
Cliff Floyd (.244/.324/.407) and Lastings Milledge (.241/.310/.380) in 2006
Michael Cuddyer (sort of) in 2015 (.259/.309/.391)
Alejandro De Aza in 2016 (.205/.297/.315)
??? In 2022 (Tyler Naquin? Darin Ruf? Travis Jankowski? None particularly good)
That’s not all but some of the best teams in Mets history — a World Series winner, a pennant winner, a 90-win team, a 97-win team, another 97-win team, another pennant-winner, an 87-win playoff team, and a 101-win team — whose fourth outfielders were just okay. Some were even bad. Sometimes you just can’t find a fourth outfielder who’s a star waiting to burst forth, and that’s perfectly fine.
Remember: if it was easy, then everyone would do it. If there were better fourth outfielders than Tommy Pham growing on trees, then the Mets would have signed one. But show me that farm, with superstar fourth outfielders sprouting up all over the place, ripe for the plucking. Show me that farm.
Which brings up another key point: who exactly is the alternative? The Mets needed a fourth outfielder — preferably a right-handed hitter who could also take at-bats as a pinch-hitter or DH to replace Daniel Vogelbach against lefties — so they signed Pham. Of the options available, who is better?
David Peralta is available, but he’s a lefty, and he hasn’t been that much better than Pham over the last two years. Jurickson Profar is available; like Pham, he’s a bad defender, but unlike Pham, he doesn’t hit the ball hard or run particularly fast. Odúbel Herrera is available — a lefthanded hitter who was worse than Pham last year. Lorenzo Cain — 37 years old coming off a .465 OPS. Tyler Naquin — a lefty who fell off a cliff after he came to the Mets last season.
This isn’t to say that Pham is a shining star vastly above the rest of the list. What it is to say is that he’s at least on par with the other options. From the available group, he’s an excellent choice. There’s no fourth outfielder available who’s so clearly better than Pham that signing Pham instead is some sort of calamitous misjudgment.
Sometimes teams stumble unknowingly into hidden gems: Endy Chávez, Lenny Harris, the 1986 version of Danny Heep. But that’s obviously not the norm. Most of the time, a fourth outfielder is just a fourth outfielder, someone who can hit a little and field a little but is on the bench for a reason. See 2022 World Champion Mauricio Dubón (.214/.252/.313).
This isn’t the recent Wilpon administration, when adding Tommy Pham would be the big move of the offseason. The Mets need a bench piece, and Pham is a solid fit for the role. He’s no longer a star; he’s just a fourth outfielder. And that’s perfectly fine.
Well the phrase is used these days like it’s an official specialty. We have had “utility player” used for many years. “4th outfielder” is a newer term. But language leads to new narratives. And soon enough it’s a specialty.
And yet, with such small benches, specialized players on the bench are that last thing we need. We need flexibility from everyone on the bench and from as many of the starters as possible. The solution to huge bullpens, necessitated by short starts, is either larger active rosters, more flexibility with activating and deactivating players for games (like they do in the nfl) or just having less games.
I understand your point, and not here to say Pham is a bad 4th outfielder. But the use of historical examples was inaccurate, in both specific examples and premise. Floyd went into the 2006 season as the starting LF. McRae was the 1999 Starting CF. In 1986, Mookie was injured in spring training in a rundown drill. He and Dykstra were a platoon. George Foster was the starter in LF.
But more so, the premise. The term “ 4th outfielder”did not exist. There were starters, often more than 8 due to platoons, and there were bench players. The benches were far deeper, because starting pitchers pitched far more innings and bullpens were far smaller. In 1999, behind McRae on the bench were outfielders Jermaine Allensworth, Mike Kinkade, and Roger Cedeno. Part of a long bench that also included Luis Lopez, Matt Franco and Todd Pratt.
If you need to compare the choice of Pham as a fourth outfielder, you should use contemporary examples. Who are the other 4th outfielders in baseball today, and how does Pham compare? Then you should look at how many starts would be expected from a 4th outfielder on a team with starting outfielders Marte and Canha who even if healthy will each rest at least once in every 5 games. And in a league with a DH, unlike the example years you presented.