Tommy Pham, OF, St. Louis Cardinals
No matter how good a player ends up being, there will always be pressure on them to follow up a breakout season with more of the same that next year. Tommy Pham finally got a chance to play every day for the Cardinals in 2017 and took full advantage — the outfielder enjoyed a 20-20 season to go along with a 148 wRC+ and 6.1 fWAR in just 530 plate appearances.
And through the end of this April, the breakout continued. He slashed .341/.453/.511 with 22 runs scored, a 169 wRC+, and a walk rate (17.0%) that was nearly out-pacing his strikeout rate (18.9%).
Something else that also stuck out was his .415 BABIP, which happened despite a 48.5% ground-ball rate and 35.3% hard-hit rate. And while his hard-hit rate has skyrocketed since May 1st (52.6%), so has his ground-ball rate (53.2%), which is part of the reason behind his .270 BABIP during this time.
Pham is still proving to be a worthy commodity in St. Louis’ outfield — he owns a 117 wRC+ and .341 wOBA through 252 plate appearances. It’s just that the insane pace he was on at the end of April has slowed down considerably.
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