Archive for the “Tommy Pham” Category

I spent a weekend in Springfield taking in some local company and a pair of games: one on Saturday and one on Sunday.  There are three position players on the Springfield team (Matt Adams, Ryan Jackson and Tommy Pham) that I paid special attention to and I had the chance to get a look at Nick Additon and Kevin Thomas as starters.

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Let’s throw this one out to the Future Redbirds community.  Who do you think is poised for a breakout this season and why?  Don’t forget to show your work.  I’ll give you a few of mine to get the exercise started.

Tommy Pham - This is an easy one because he is “poised” to break out every year.  We thought we were seeing it last year after his impressive Spring Training, but it has not yet come together for Pham.  He hit well in Springfield in 121 at bats after finally graduating from the pitchers-haven of Palm Beach. He ended the year on the DL, which also did not help him.  A full year in Springfield in his age 23 season should assist Pham’s break out in 2011.

Pete Kozma – Kozma’s jump to Springfield for a full season did not bring much success, but he is in line to repeat AA as a 23 year old.  If he is going to have any success at the major league level, he will need to break out this season when he repeats in Springfield.  That’s more of a “must break out” than “poised”, but I think it still applies.

John Gast – Gast put up great numbers as a lefthanded starter in Batavia.  This season, I think he will take those great numbers up to Quad Cities and possibly Palm Beach.  In Batavia, he increased his strikeouts and limited his walks compared to his college career.  He should have a break out season by continuing his good numbers at higher levels and against better competition.

Who do you think is ready for a break out season?

After seemingly appearing in every spring training report we posted this spring, Tommy Pham has undoubtedly re-captured our interest. Performance in spring training is always a tricky thing and it’s not a very good of future performance. That said, seeing signs of life out of Pham is hugely encouraging. The tools have long been there but the production never indicated he was going to get it together.

With the conclusion of yesterday’s game, Tommy was 20-for-42 good for a .476 batting average.  He’s walked 12 times and has an on base percentage approaching .600.  Of his 20 hits, 8 of them were for extra bases: 4 doubles, 2 triples, 2 HRs.

It’s been a tremendous spring for Pham and, in a farm system bereft of any real standout position players, he has an opportunity to stake out some space at the top of prospect lists. The wet blanket side of me has to remind everyone that it’s still just spring but what a spring he’s had. Now’s the point in the relationship when we ask Tommy if he wants to be exclusive during the regular season. . . let’s go steady, Tommy.

Before we get to the meat of this post, let’s start off with some good news: neither Tommy Pham or Daryl Jones have any lasting injuries as a result of the outfield collision last night. Jones is going to be put on the DL because he had some swelling in his calf and he was expected to miss around a week, so the club went the safe route and used the DL. [Thanks to John Vuch for the inside scoop]

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A few days ago I was chastised in the comments for having unrealistic expectations for Pete Kozma. The commentor was correct – hoping that Kozma can raise his slugging percent to .450 while maintaining his high OBP is setting the bar pretty high at this point in his career. It made me wonder, though, what a realistic expectation for a player in Kozma’s position would be. So I went back and took a look at every high school shortstop taken in the first round since 2000. A breakdown of their performances as nineteen year-olds is after jump, along with the details from tonight’s games. Read the rest of this entry »