{"id":822544,"date":"2026-08-22T22:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T22:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/822544\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T22:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T22:54:16","slug":"tommy-pham-gets-into-social-media-spat-with-reds-dane-myers-over-defensive-metrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/822544\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Pham gets into social media spat with Reds\u2019 Dane Myers over defensive metrics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Reds center fielder Dane Myers defended himself against accusations of selfishness made by former Reds outfielder and current Philadelphia Phillies minor leaguer Tommy Pham for Myers\u2019 missed catch that led to a 10-9 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Myers dropped the final out<\/a> of what would\u2019ve been a 5-4 victory, leading to a six-run top of the ninth for the Cardinals. Pham, who has played for both the Reds and Cardinals, insinuated in a post on X that\u00a0Myers was trying to catch the ball to help his defensive metrics.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on is we have cf\u2019s today who know the value of stealing catches to help their ooa numbers go up bcuz it improves your war so you have this, a game that is lost bcuz the cf didn\u2019t want the lf to catch the ball bcuz he wanted the points<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tommy Pham (@TphamLV) August 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

After Thursday\u2019s game, Myers said he was shading toward left field and had a discussion with left fielder TJ Friedl\u00a0before the fly ball hit by the Cardinals\u2019 JJ Wetherholt\u00a0that any ball in the left-center gap was his.<\/p>\n

Myers responded to Pham\u2019s comment on X, noting that he is 30 and not yet eligible for arbitration, so his actions on the play were not motivated by his defensive metrics.<\/p>\n

A ten year vet, decent one at that, a \u201cbrother\u201d calling me selfish. \ud83d\ude02 You are talking like an average fan man, you spent all that time in big leagues you should know\/remember there\u2019s more to a play than what just appears on the screen\u2026 that being said play still has to be made<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dane Myers (@danemyers3) August 21, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Myers concluded by saying that the \u201cplay still has to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pham stood by his comments Saturday when reached by The Athletic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an issue because center fielders and infielders are now gaming the system for their WAR,\u201d Pham wrote to The Athletic in a direct message on X. \u201cWhen I talked to Tom Tango, who created this system, about it, he acknowledged it and said he will try to fix it for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Pham has sounded off on WAR and other advanced metrics. He told The Athletic in January that many metrics have flaws because they don\u2019t take into account things like the quality of the opposing team a hitter faces or the weather a defender deals with on a given day.<\/p>\n

Pham, 38, was with the Reds in 2022 and has played for 10 teams during his 13-year big-league career, including nine games with the New York Mets this season. He is currently with the Phillies\u2019 Triple-A affiliate, where he is hitting .284\/.418\/.448 with three home runs in 38 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Reds center fielder Dane Myers defended himself against accusations of selfishness made by former Reds outfielder and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2319,363,99],"class_list":["post-822544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}