With 15% of the 2024 season in the books, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Pham opt-out decision:
When the White Sox signed veteran outfielder Tommy Pham to a minor league deal earlier this month, the deal came with a stipulation (per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal) that Pham, 36, could opt out of his deal with the club if not selected to the major league roster by today. Chicago will have to clear a spot on the 40-man and active rosters to accommodate Pham’s addition. The veteran has made it into just three games in the minor leagues to this point, having gone 3-for-13 with a double and three strikeouts at the Triple-A level.
While he’s had minimal time to build up for the regular season, Pham has been a roughly league average corner bat going back to his 2019 season with the Rays. Over the past five seasons, he’s slashed .247/.337/.407 with a 105 wRC+, including a 2023 campaign that saw him slash .256/.328/.446 with a wRC+ of 110. Should the White Sox decide not to select Pham’s contract today, it’s certainly possible that he could find interest with another big league club that has suffered early-season outfield injuries, such as the Cardinals or Cubs.
2. Seager exits following HBP:
Rangers shortstop Corey Seager exited yesterday’s game prior to the eighth inning after being struck in the shin by a pitch in the seventh. As noted by MLB.com’s injury tracker, club manager Bruce Bochy told reporters following the game that Seager’s shin had “swelled up pretty good” following his removal from the game before indicating that the club intended to check on him today to determine next steps. Seager has hit just .256/.347/.313 (93 wRC+) to this point in the season but stormed to a second-place finish in AL MVP voting last year after an incredible campaign with the bat. Should Seager miss time, utility infielder Ezequiel Duran appears to be the most likely candidate to replace him in the lineup, but it’s not yet clear whether there’s a notable injury for the two-time World Series MVP.
3. Crawford to undergo MRI:
Seager isn’t the only AL West shortstop dealing with something, as J.P. Crawford of the Mariners was scratched from yesterday’s game due to an oblique issue he felt during batting practice prior to the game. Manager Scott Servais told reporters (including Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times) following last night’s loss to the Rangers that the club is not yet certain about the severity of Crawford’s ailment, and that he’s set to be sent for an MRI to before they determine next steps. Crawford, 29, has had a slow start on offense (84 wRC+ in 98 trips to the plate) but has fashioned himself into an above-average all-around shortstop in recent years, hitting .258/.350/.380 (112 wRC+) dating back to 2021. Utilityman Dylan Moore started at shortstop for the club last night in Crawford’s stead and could see more time at the position should he require a stint on the injured list, with Luis Urias and Sam Haggerty among the club’s other possibilities on the 40-man roster. Ryan Bliss, a 2021 second-rounder acquired from the D-backs in last year’s Paul Sewald trade, is top minor league option that’s not on the 40-man roster.
The White Sox are off to such a good start I can’t imagine why they would want to spend money on activating Pham…
Yeah, why mess up a potentially historic season?
I hate to advocate for violence and don’t want to see anyone get hurt but maybe the Sox need a good ol fashioned bench clearing brawl. Could potentially light a fire of sorts.
@Mikenmn
If the O’s can tank for a while and now have a team that everyone wants to talk about, so can the White Sox.
The White Sox clearly don’t have a farm system like the O’s had.
Except tanking don’t help b/c the new CBA draft rules wouldn’t allow them to pick higher than 10th in 2025 even if they lost every game from here out.
@SCOTTG3
I guess It helps when the Astros decide they don’t like to be successful with their development program and get rid of a core that ends up signing with Baltimore.
And now get the former Astros/current Baltimore front office to Chicago and you’ll have a point. No reason to have faith in the current front office and ownership in implementing that type of tank and rebuild. The former, yes; the latter, no. Losing is easy. The rest is the extremely hard part.
I’m not a fan of tanking, and yes, I get your point. Activating Pham would simply be to see if he has enough left to tempt some team in need to take over his salary in return for a prospect. Otherwise, for a team like the WS, it’s just spending money
Much of Baltimore’s roster was built from waiver claims (Webb, Perez, Urias, Mateo), cash trades (O’Hearn, McCann, Coulombe), pre-tanking draft picks (Baumann, Rodriguez, Akin, Mountcastle, Hays, Mullins, Means), and Rule 5 picks (Santander, Wells).
Kremer & Bradish are from Duquette teardown trades. Bautista was a Duquette minor-league signed
Cano, Irvin, and Burnes are from Elias trades. Kimbrel & Suarez FA.
Rutschman, Henderson, Cowser, Westburg, Kjerstad, and Holliday are Elias draft picks.
So.
You could reasonably claim the last six guys are from tanking. But Cowser was a # 5 pick, so just pointing that out. Stretch the definition and Kremer & Bradish came from giving up on the season – something half the league does in August every year.
Mateo (waiver) and Wells (R5) are the only ones listed that the Orioles got as a benefit of tanking waiver priority & Rule 5 priority.
Realistically, eight of their core guys came from tanking. The rest came through perfectly normal means. I’m pretty tired of this tanking narrative. Their success now is not because they were bad. The same guy is at the helm in the clubhouse. Their success now is because they focused on building their organizational infrastructure from basically scratch. It was an investment in the back-end at the expense of the front end. And yes, while four of the Elias draftees certainly form the core of the current offense, the fact is that the majority of the big league roster is full of players that any team could have had, where “tanking” had virtually no bearing on how they came to be good players for Balmer.
The more you know.
wow, I read that and feel like an Orioles insider. nice!!
The O’s did it before the lottery for the draft. Can’t tank for draft picks anymore.
@Pads Fans
You can still tank for draft picks. Just because a team gets #1, doesn’t mean they’ll pan out to be anything.
Jerry is so cheap I’m sure they would rather him opt-out than add him for the $3M or whatever he signed for.
Whaat u don’t need another 200k guy in the lineup with the me first attitude
The Cubs wouldn’t be interested in Pham, despite that mention. They have enough alternate options despite the injuries.
The Cardinals? Probably. They need all the OF help they can get.
The White Sox? No, if he’s league average he’d just make the rest of the roster look even worse.
Probably the last game in a Sox uniform for either Grossman or Pillar.
Grossman. Pillar can still play solid D at least.
Grossman seems more likely for sure. Especially with Eloy and Sheets taking up regular spots in LF and DH
Ideally Benintendi would be gone but not with that much money left on his contract.
Benintendi plays LF as if he’s allergic to fly balls. He looks like he’s running through knee-high sand to get to them.
@Bob Sacamano: At 3-21 with no chance of contending, why keep Grossman or Pillar?
They are 3rd and 4th on the team in OBP because unlike nearly every other player on the team they can work a count.
Also they are both about to hit 10 years service time and getting their full pension/retirement benefits would be one good thing to come out of this season.
Being a leader in OBP on a 3-21 team isn’t saying much. How much worse could the record be without them?
And hitting a service time threshold is purely a personal matter for each player. The organization needs to concern itself with scouting, obtaining, and developing talent, not whether a couple of journeymen get retirement benefits.
In absence of competent scouting and development I’m rooting for what positives I’ve got to root for and if that’s some journeymen making a material improvement in their lives by hanging on to their careers just a little bit longer I’m gonna take it.
Get rid of the munchkin in CF. He still can be optioned. What a terrible trade that never needed to be made. I hate that my favorite baseball team is allergic to people who can actually hit home runs.
What munchkin and what trade?
Id be fine if they demoted him and released Colas or Sosa since they obviously aren’t part of the future.
At 36, this could be the end of the ride for Pham. Most players don’t voluntarily hang ‘em up.
He had a good year in 2023. If and when promoted he could be the White Sox best player.
But they’re 3-21. Being the best player on a team like that is a highly dubious honor.
More importantly, why would they promote a 36yo journeyman instead of giving the playing time to younger guys?
It makes no difference. The point is Pham is good enough to play in the big leagues still. You say he’s not but facts aren’t on your side.
Why do any bad teams sign veterans?
@Blackpink: What I say doesn’t matter. But if he’s good enough, why isn’t anyone signing him?
They did sign him fella.
No. He didn’t have a good year. Pham had a below league average season in 2023. 1.5 WAR.
1.5 WAR is below average???? It’s above replacement level and that’s what matters not some made up average.
Why do you hate Pham? It’s weird. Anything about Pham you show up and spread hate. Why?
It’s interesting that Austin Voth threw that sweeper to Seager that hit him as he did to Josh Smith which was called for a strike. Oh the fun of Statcast data.
Pham couldn’t damage the Cardinals offense much until Walker is back up.
He’s not coming back
Pham will not be signing with the Cardinals you can bet on that. Things didn’t end well in St Louis. He’s been proven correct about what he was upset about but Mozeliak won’t admit that and bring him back.
Why Mozeliak gets to make any more decisions is a topic for another post…
If it’s Pham’s only opportunity to get back to MLB he’d sign with the Cardinals.
He would enjoy the strip clubs in East St. Louis, which I hear are rather (ahem) “touchy feely.”
Last time I checked going to the strip club isn’t a crime. If it was the NBA wouldn’t exist.
I think we’re going to be having Chaim Bloom conversations fairly soon in St. Louis.
Seager was cleared to serve as the DH tonight.
Pham has not found a strip club to get stabbed at yet.
Once that happens, his slashes will be considered above league average…