There may be no player who is more likely to be traded over the next month than Tommy Pham, who is hitting well as an affordable rental on the worst team in the league. It’d be very surprising if the White Sox didn’t move him before the July 30 deadline.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that the Royals are one of the teams that have shown interest. There’s nothing to suggest the Royals are the favorite or that any Pham trade is imminent. Heyman writes that multiple clubs are unsurprisingly looking at the veteran outfielder.
Kansas City has the worst outfield among playoff contenders. Royal outfielders have been the least productive offensive group in the majors. They entered today’s game with a cumulative .209/.268/.343 batting line. They’re 28th in batting average and slugging and dead last in on-base percentage. Six of the seven players who have logged meaningful outfield reps for K.C. have been well below-average hitters. The lone exception, utility player Garrett Hampson, has league average numbers propped up by a .418 batting average on balls in play.
The Royals have used Hunter Renfroe, Kyle Isbel and MJ Melendez as their primary outfield. Melendez is hitting .180/.246/.364 over 224 plate appearances. Isbel’s .225/.270/.348 line isn’t much better. Renfroe had a terrible first two months after signing a two-year free agent deal. He’d started to heat up in June before suffering a left foot injury that shelved him last week. Since Renfroe went down, the Royals have rotated Adam Frazier, Dairon Blanco and primary designated hitter Nelson Velázquez through right field. None of that trio has provided much offensively this year.
Pham is probably a better hitter than anyone in the Kansas City outfield. The 36-year-old ran a .256/.328/.446 line with 16 home runs across 481 plate appearances between the Mets and Diamondbacks last season. That didn’t translate into the kind of free agent interest that his camp was anticipating. Pham remained unsigned into the middle of April. He eventually inked a minor league contract with Chicago, though that came with an understanding that he’d be called up by the end of the month after getting some tune-up work in Triple-A.
The deal comes with a $3MM base salary and includes a $500K assignment bonus in the event of a trade. Pham and the Sox front office were likely both hoping for such an outcome. A trade would allow the Sox to recoup a mid-level prospect while giving the outfielder an opportunity to play for a contender.
Pham has held his up his end of the bargain, turning in solid numbers over 39 games. He’s hitting .276/.349/.388 over 169 plate appearances. His power is down — he has only three homers — but he’s drawing walks at a solid 9.5% clip against a 20.1% strikeout rate. Pham had a minimal injured list stint earlier this month because of a mild left ankle sprain.
Chicago gave Pham 26 starts in center field while Luis Robert Jr. was on the shelf. That’s his first fairly regular work there since 2018. A contender wouldn’t view him as more than an emergency option in center, but he’s a roughly average defender in left field.
That has been Melendez’s purview in Kansas City. He’s a former top prospect who hasn’t made enough contact to tap into his power upside. Melendez has punched out in 26.5% of his career plate appearances and owns a .217/.302/.388 line over parts of three seasons. He’s a left-handed hitter who hasn’t found consistent success against pitchers of either handedness.
The Royals presumably still have hope for Melendez, who is in his age-25 season. K.C. general manager J.J. Picollo said he anticipates improvements from the in-house outfielders while acknowledging the team could look outside the organization if they don’t start getting more production.
Earlier this week, Picollo told Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville on The Windup podcast that the team would like to add a player with the versatility to move between the infield and outfield. That’s not Pham, who has played all 7000+ innings of his MLB career on the grass. Picollo’s comments certainly don’t rule out acquiring a traditional outfielder, though. The GM expressed a broad desire to deepen the batting order and suggested he’d be aggressive in supporting the organization’s best chance at a playoff berth since their 2015 World Series.
The White Sox won’t have any qualms about trading Pham within the division. Conversely, the return would be modest enough that Kansas City shouldn’t be concerned about surrendering the kind of prospect capital necessary to a division rival. Beyond the desire for offensive help, Picollo has spoken on a couple occasions about their desire to add power arms to the bullpen. White Sox closer Michael Kopech fits the bill and has reportedly drawn some attention from K.C., among others. There’s no indication the teams have actively explored any kind of package deal, but it’s easy enough to see the potential appeal of that kind of arrangement.