2015 St. Louis Cardinals’ Season Review: Surprises

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Oct 9, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals pinch hitter Thomas Pham (60) hits a solo home run against the Chicago Cubs in the 8th inning in game one of the NLDS at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports

#2 Tommy Pham 

Wow, another player that stepped up big for the Cardinals that I simply did not see coming. Pham had a great start in spring training, but his hopes of making the club to start the season were derailed when he suffered a quad injury in early March. The quad injuries turned out to be a theme this season, with Matt Holliday and Matt Adams suffering from quad injuries as well. 

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Pham did have a strong season at AAA last season with a .324/.395/.491 slash that included 32 extra-base hits. However, with the quad injury and past injuries, the question for Pham was always his health. Unfortunately at times his manager had questions about Pham’s ability to perform as he decided to lean on veteran Jon Jay way too much this season with a more talented Pham wasting on the bench. Pham finished the season with a pretty good line of .268/.347/.477 with 29 extra-base hits (5 Home Runs, 7 doubles, 5 triples) in 153 at bats, and a wRC+ of 125 according to Fangraphs.

For next season, I am going to temper my expectations way down for Mr. Pham as he will be going into his age 28 season and with Piscotty and Randal Grichuk ahead of him on the OF depth chart, I simply don’t see him having a chance to start in the OF unless there is a catastrophic OF injury meltdown again.