{"id":638320,"date":"2026-04-30T09:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T09:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/638320\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T09:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T09:48:24","slug":"tommy-pham-elects-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/638320\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Pham Elects Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/phamth01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tommy Pham<\/a> has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse. The veteran has exercised his right to reject the assignment and elect free agency. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AnthonyDiComo\/status\/2049561524184735855\" rel=\"nofollow\">Anthony DiComo of MLB.com<\/a> reported the news.<\/p>\n<p>Pham, 38, signed a minor league deal with the Mets in March. He was added to the roster in mid-April. He got into nine games and was sent to the plate 14 times. He struck out seven times, walked once and did not get a hit. The Mets pounced on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/slateau01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Austin Slater<\/a> a couple of days after the Marlins let him go. Pham was the roster casualty for that signing. As a veteran with many years of experience, Pham has the right to reject outright assignments and has exercised that right.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019ll now head to the open market in search of his next opportunity. He\u2019ll most likely be limited to minor league offers. In the most recent offseason, he lingered unsigned until late into March, signing on March 26th. His recent performance with the Mets surely didn\u2019t do anything to improve his stock.<\/p>\n<p>Though Pham is in his late-30s, he was still providing offense close to league average with the Pirates last year. He hit ten home runs and drew walks at an 11.1% clip, leading to a .245\/.330\/.370 line and 94 wRC+. That\u2019s not too inspiring but he did have a torrid stretch in the summer. He had a brutal .207\/.280\/.237 line through the end of May but then slashed .304\/.382\/.495 from the start of June to the end of August, before he scuffled through September with a .143\/.270\/.270 line.<\/p>\n<p>Coming into 2026, Pham <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2025\/11\/tommy-pham-200-homers-200-steals.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">expressed some hope<\/a> that a treatment to address plantar fasciitis could improve his game after struggling with the condition in recent years. That hasn\u2019t panned out yet but he also didn\u2019t really get a good chance to get into form. As mentioned, he remained unsigned long enough to miss spring training. The Mets put him into five Single-A games before calling him up and he didn\u2019t get into a groove. Though he may only get minor league offers, it\u2019s theoretically possible that some regular reps could position him for another summer surge.<\/p>\n<p>Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outfielder Tommy Pham has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse. The veteran has exercised his right&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82,28429],"class_list":["post-638320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-tommy-pham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}