NL contender among teams with interest in Tommy Pham

The Phillies are among the teams with some interest in White Sox outfielder Tommy Pham, writes Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Philadelphia is known to be on the hunt for some outfield help in the run-up to the July 30 trade deadline, and while they’ve been more heavily rumored to be seeking a true center fielder, the 36-year-old Pham could still give them a solid bat in left field (pushing Brandon Marsh to center with more regularity) or a bat off the bench who could be paired with a true center field addition.

While Pham doesn’t offer the defensive excellence of current Philadelphia outfielders Johan Rojas and Cristian Pache, he can handle center field in a pinch. He also brings quite a bit more offense than either player. Pham’s bat has cooled since a hot start to the season, but he’s still sporting a solid .264/.339/.368 slash line on the season (103 wRC+). This is Pham’s tenth full big league season and the eighth in which he’s provided at least average offense.

The Phillies recently released veteran Whit Merrifield, who’d played 25 games in left field for them (in addition to 14 at second base and a dozen at the hot corner). The hope had been that he could be a vital bat for them against lefties, but that didn’t prove to be the case. He hit just .190/.238/.329 in 84 plate appearances against southpaws. Pham, on the other hand, has pummeled lefties, hitting .260/.383/.480 when holding the platoon advantage. He’s posted a solid .265 average and .325 on-base percentage against righties but hasn’t hit for any power in right-on-right situations, slugging just .337.

Pham’s contractual status also likely appeals to a Phillies club already in the second tier of luxury tax penalization. He’s playing the season on a $3M salary, with about $1.21M of that sum yet to be paid out as of this writing. (He’d be owed a $500K assignment bonus upon being traded and can unlock an additional $1.5M in salary based on plate appearances.) Because the Phils are paying the tax for a third straight year and in the second tier of penalty ($20M to $40M over the $237M tax threshold), they’ll pay a 62% tax on any dollars added to the payroll.

Adding Pham and the remainder of his modest base salary would result in an additional $750K of tax penalties, bringing his theoretical luxury hit for the club to $1.96M (the exact number will be impacted by which team pays the assignment bonus and the actual timing of a potential trade, of course). That’s particularly beneficial to the Phillies, who would see their top pick in the 2025 draft if they reach $277M in tax considerations. RosterResource currently projects the Phils at $261.6M worth of luxury obligations. With the Phillies eyeing multiple upgrades ahead of the deadline, assuring that at least one of those pickups comes with a relatively minimal salary commitment could be extra important.