Hunt and Peck

Please do not trade Tommy Pham, Cardinals - A Hunt and Peck

I am irrational and I do not care.

By lil_scooter93 Oct 6, 2017, 1:29pm EDT

MLB: St. Louis Cardinals at Cincinnati Reds

There are tons of reasons to trade a player. Sometimes the offer is just too good. Sometimes room has to be made for another player. Sometimes the team just plain has needs and it just has to be done. That is baseball and that is just how it goes.

So with all that understood, please do not trade Tommy Pham, Cardinals. Not because he was the brightest spot in a frustrating 2017 season. Not because his contract is a bargain at four years of team control - one at league minimum and three arbitration years. Keep him because of this (per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch):

Starting with that promotion to Class AA and the success he had there, Pham has been a regular reader of FanGraphs.com and other metric-heavy sites. He joked that people like to send him tweets about where he ranks, and he checks at least once a week for how his line-drive rates look and how his walk rates have improved. From those stats, he said he can get a feel for the direction of his game, and his assessment of it is as blunt as his take on the team.

Tommy Pham is a true student of the game. He understands where it is going and how it is evolving. When that gets combined with true athletic talent, a lot of good things are possible. I want the chance to witness those. It might be selfish. It might be irrational. I do not care.

Pham thinks he can be faster, better — and Cards should keep him | St. Louis Cardinals | stltoday.com