Tommy Pham: How the Mets can Approach Him.

Photo Courtesy of USA Today

   Hello everyone, and welcome to my new series "How the Mets can Approach" where I take a look into the next series the Mets are set to play in (since I'm a Mets fan, I'll likely cover the opponents the Mets face for this series). I will cover the star/hot players and/or pitchers of the team that the Mets are scheduled to face off against next. Without further ado, here is how I believe the Mets can approach the star hitter of the Cardinals, Tommy Pham (Carlos Martinez will not be covered here since he is not slated to start in this series).

   The Mets are set to take on the St. Louis Cardinals for the next three games through Thursday. The Cardinals have a dangerous lineup, as their 111 wRC+ is in the top 5 in the league (as of this writing).
 
   It is safe to say that the team has some dangerous bats in their lineup, but as mentioned before, I plan on covering Tommy Pham, and exactly how I think the Mets would be best off pitching to him throughout this series.

   Pham had a breakout season last year that seemed to be too good to be true (as evidenced by his .368 BABIP), but he showed that he hits the ball hard with an average exit velocity of 89.2 MPH last year, and complimented that with an approach that prioritized hitting the ball lower (1.98 GB/FB rate) and hard to all fields. 

   

   This approach tends to lead to a higher BABIP, as if the ball is hit in the air more, the fielders have more time to track it down before it lands in their gloves. Meanwhile, if a batter pulls the ball more often, they will be susceptible to shifts, and stuff like this happens more often than not.  

   

   What's interesting is that as much as Pham had a high BABIP last season, he is doubling down on it with a too high of BABIP even for him at .396. Pham though has proven that his breakout season last year was no fluke, as he's lowered his strikeout rate, and increased his walk rate over the past two seasons. His discipline has shown that these impressive walk to strikeout ratios are here to stay, and he is tough to keep from putting the ball in play. This is beneficial for Pham, as his 28.5 sprint speed this season is among the elite in the Majors. 

   It is clear that Pham is a threat not to be taken lightly. However, he is not perfect, and has some tendencies. This season, Pham has slugged best when being pitched high and mainly on the inside edge of the plate.

   This is an interesting contrast, as I have found that the league has shifted toward hitting for more power when the pitch is thrown lower in the zone (something I will go over in a future article). And as you can see here, Pham has certainly not been caught off guard with high fastballs:

   Essentially, pounding hitters with high and inside with fastballs works against the rest of the league, but against Pham, its futile, as he has a whopping .737 ISO on fastballs high and inside.

   Pham has made some great adjustments this year against the league, but the Mets can easily adjust back against him. I mentioned how Pham has been torching fastballs (especially high and inside), but that dead red approach has left him susceptible to breaking balls. This is in fact, true. 

  

   Over the past two seasons, Pham has performed poorly against breaking pitches, specifically against curves and sliders. His wRC+ is an astronomical 224 against all fastballs, it stands at a horrendous 40 against curves and sliders. Pham tends to hit these pitches at a respectable average exit velocity of 90.9 mph, but more often than not, can't do anything with these pitches anyway, as he pounds them into the ground (-0.6 Launch Angle).  

   

   He also whiffs at a significantly higher rate against those pitches:

   He has been safe to say, weak against those particular pitches. One would think that other teams would make the appropriate adjustments against him. However, the league though seems to not have taken notice:

  Essentially, it seems like the league has been throwing even MORE fastballs against him and less breaking balls. Now, the Mets have been throwing a low amount of overall fastballs, (and interestingly enough, rank in the top 10 in high fastballs thrown) but they also throw in a good mix of curves and sliders (rank 7th in the Majors). 

   Basically, the approach here should be to start some counts off with low breaking balls (as he's among the top 25 in first pitch swing %). The team can also occasionally throw in some high and/or inside fastballs if they feel he is starting to catch on to the diet of breaking balls that they hopefully give him throughout the series. Pham is a great hitter, but I believe that this can give the Mets a good game plan as to how to approach him and keep him off balance the next few games before he goes off and implements terrorizing the Pirates into his plans for the weekend.

All Stats and Information were written as of April 24th, and come from Fangraphs, Baseball Savant and Brooks Baseball