*karate chops the air* HiiiiiiiiiiYA! Chopping down overrated players with the quickness and I’ve set my sights on Tommy Pham. Speaking of karate, you have to bow if your opponent bows, right? So, I’d be a World Karate Champion by bowing non-stop with a sneak attack worked in. They’d call me, Bowing Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and I’d be fierce. *wavy lines signaling dream sequence* I bow, opponent bows, I bow again and opponent knocks me out with one kick. *wavy lines signaling end of dream sequence* Damn, I can’t even make myself a karate champion in my dreams. You know what? I don’t need kay-ROT-té! I have fantasy baseball! However, what I don’t have on my fantasy baseball teams this year is Tommy Pham. “Land mine, right ahead!” That’s the remake of the Titanic after a nuclear holocaust and someone accidentally merges the Titanic wiki page with Princess Di’s. By the way, imagine watching Survivor after a nuclear war. “Um, yeah, so they’re starving, so what? So am I!” Am I the only excited for the new season of Survivor? Prolly, unless a time traveler from 2002 is reading this. Any hoo! I didn’t think I was gonna have to write this post, but I see some very smart fantasy baseball people being trip-wired by Pham, so I need to lift the haze. Illuminate the love story in the genre-bending, The Crying Game, and make the world less Phambiguous. Ignite a roadside flare in your brain. So, what can we expect from Tommy Pham for 2018 fantasy baseball and what makes him overrated?
Last year, Tommy Pham had the 4th best BABIP at .368. As the French would say, you have the luck of a man with backpack large enough to cover his baguette in the rain. Neutral luck, Pham is a .265 hitter. In Triple-A in 2016, he had a BABIP of .295 and hit .236 with a similar K-rate that he had last year. Um, yeah, that’s trouble. Informercial Voice, “Wait, there’s more!” If he struggles in April or May, Harrison Bader, Tyler O’Neill and Jose Adolis Garcia are lurking behind Pham, just biding their time, just rubbing their fingers together mischievously, just waiting to take over an outfield job. Informercial Voice, “Wait, there’s more!” Pham had the sixth highest HR/FB% in the majors last year at 26.7%. I’m sorry, what? Who is he, Joey Gallo? That is a ludicrous number for Pham. No amount of corrective eye surgery is making Pham a 26.7% HR/FB guy. He’s going to be falling out of his heels trying to get 16 homers this year. His speed looks more or less repeatable, but that’s assuming the rest of his troubles don’t haunt him and he loses opportunities to steal. He didn’t just happen to look like a Quad-A player for the first eleven (!!!) years he was in professional ball to suddenly breakout last year. The steals could buoy his value, but 16/20/.265 drafted in the top 60 overall? Take Kiermaier 200 spots later. Try Lorenzo Cain 30 picks later. Yo, homey, go with Michael Taylor 200 picks later. How about Bradley Zimmer? Manuel Margot? Tim Anderson? Ronald ACUNA! All of these guys will outproduce Tommy Wham! Bam! No thank you, Pham! and are going after him. What’s the attraction with Pham? I mean, I’ve heard the stories about how he’s A-OK on the “E…new line…FP…new line…T…Uh, is that an oh or zero? Can you put eye drops in again, I like when strangers touch my eyelids? Wait, where are you going, eye doctor? I love Dilated Peoples! Is that so wrong?!” So, that’s the attraction? His eyes are now good? Y’all are buying into the narrative that he’s a top 15 outfielder because of his eyes? Wow, that is more ludicrous than the plot to the new movie, Annihilation. Rather than dining with the Gods on a steady diet of Phambrosia like he’s The Phambino, I’m expecting his owners to feel Phamboozled and disPhambobulated, and I’m not going anywhere near him.
