Pretty soon, the Chicago White Sox clubhouse could start to look a lot like a 2024 reunion. Given how well that 2024 season went and the lack of players on the roster who start fights and go on social media tangents, apparently, Chris Getz has identified a need to address.
On Monday, the White Sox acquired veteran outfielder Tommy Pham from the Philadelphia Phillies for cash considerations. Pham, who is currently on a minor league deal, is expected to join the White Sox when rosters expand on September 1.
Even though the trade deadline has passed, the deal is permitted because Pham is on a minor league contract and had not been added to a major league roster at any point. After going hitless in his lone 14 plate appearances with the New York Mets this season, Pham was granted free agency in late April and signed with the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles released him about a month later, and he subsequently signed with the Phillies.
Despite an active trade deadline, the White Sox still have plenty of holes to fill. A veteran outfielder past his prime with a checkered off-field record is not one of them. Even after major league rosters expand in September, the White Sox’s 40-man roster is currently full, meaning the club will need to make a corresponding move to create a spot for Pham.
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Pham played 70 games for the White Sox in 2024 before being traded in a three-team deal involving the Dodgers and Cardinals that sent Miguel Vargas to Chicago. Now, Pham, Vargas, and Erick Fedde, all pieces of that deal and 2024 team, will share a clubhouse.
Pham does bring postseason experience and a solid resume over the course of 13 MLB seasons. He is a career .256 hitter with a .749 OPS. But the baggage is hard to overlook.
In 2020, Pham was stabbed outside a San Diego strip club after police said he asked a group of strangers to move away from his car, prompting an altercation. In 2023, he slapped Joc Peterson over a fantasy football dispute. He has also been the catalyst of multiple bench-clearing incidents. Last August, he was at the center of a bench-clearing incident between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Toronto Blue Jays. Hours after the game, Pham took to social media to rip Blue Jays catcher Tyler Heineman, then later accused Addison Barger of taking steroids in a since-deleted post.
More recently, Pham got into a social media exchange with Cincinnati Reds outfielder Dane Myers after accusing MLB center fielders of “stealing catches” to inflate their Outs Above Average numbers. During the exchange, Pham called Myers a “cry baby” and claimed his teammates and trainers don’t respect him.
Pham is now set to join a young White Sox clubhouse that has a magic wand in the dugout, has made “Strokin’” its offensive anthem and has players dressing up in Spider-Man costumes on off days.
The 38-year-old veteran has been in plenty of clubhouses over the course of his career. Is he going to blow up the team chemistry? Probably not. But there is a reason Pham, despite proving to be a solid player, has bounced around to 10 different MLB organizations since 2021.
For better or worse, Pham is a no-nonsense guy who doesn’t take any shit. He even admitted that the only reason he signed with the White Sox in 2024 was for tax purposes. That dynamic fit in fine with the 2024 White Sox, a team that would go on to set the MLB record with 121 losses. The White Sox needed an alpha in the clubhouse and, frankly, a league-average hitter. This current iteration of the White Sox is a bizarre fit, to say the least.
Pham isn’t a better defender than Brenton Doyle, Tristan Peters or Braden Montgomery, nor is he a better hitter at this point in his career than either of the team’s veteran outfielders, Andrew Benintendi or Randal Grichuk. He also doesn’t represent an obvious upgrade over Sam Antonacci, who, despite his defensive limitations in left field, has been a key cog in the White Sox lineup throughout the season.
Sure, Pham is a professional with much-needed postseason experience, and he should give the White Sox quality at-bats. But he doesn’t make this team immediately better on paper. From the outside looking in, bringing him into this group also feels like trying to mix water and vinegar.
Maybe Pham proves to be exactly what this young White Sox team needs, but on the surface, this looks like a reunion that nobody was asking for, and could have little to no returns.
