One season with the Pirates was enough to break Tommy Pham’s faith in analytics

Somewhere between Statcast’s leaderboards and the berm at PNC Park, Tommy Pham appears to have snapped.

In an interview with The Athletic, the 12-year MLB veteran — who has never once lacked confidence in the accuracy of his own opinions — unveiled his latest innovation idea for baseball’s data-drunk era:

PhamGraphs.

And honestly? It sounds like a guy who spent one summer wearing black and gold and came out of it staring at spreadsheets like Charlie Kelly with the conspiracy board. Because here’s the heart of Pham’s argument: wRC+ lies. OPS+ lies. OPS lies. And playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates broke him enough to notice.

Imagine being so battered by Pirates-adjacent baseball that you have to subpoena Baseball Savant to defend your existence.

Playing for the Pirates broke Tommy Pham's relationship with analytics (and not in a good way)

Pham’s theory is simple: If you play for a juggernaut like the Los Angeles Dodgers or New York Yankees, you eat. You get mop-up arms. You pad your stats. You live your life. But if you play for (deep sigh) the 2025 Pirates? You spend your summer facing the other team’s bullpen Terminator every night.

You aren’t batting in the seventh inning up 8–2 versus the guy who was pitching in Double-A Des Moines last week. No. You’re down 3–1 in the eighth, staring at some dude throwing hellfire and sadness because of course you are.

And apparently, after bouncing around the league for 12 seasons, and after a season of living in the analytics void with the Pirates, Pham reached enlightenment: “A 100 wRC+ on the Pirates is not the same as a 100 wRC+ on the Yankees.”

Buddy… welcome to our TED Talk.

Pham says he wants advanced stats to account for context. Strength of opponent. Frequency of high-leverage relievers. Wind. Sun. Maybe barometric pressure. Emotional distress. Spirit damage. Whatever.

He’s not wrong, either — at least one National League executive backed him up. Teams already model this stuff privately. Public stats? Not always.

And Pham — bless his truth-seeking heart — thinks the world should know that his .674 OPS was forged in the fires of premium relievers while Mark Canha got to snack on soft-serve innings.

This is the baseball version of saying, “I didn’t fail the test — the test failed me.”

But also… Pham's kind of right. And that is what makes this so perfectly Pirates.

To be clear, this isn’t a swipe at analytics. This is a swipe at what happens to your soul when you wear a Pirates uniform long enough.

Paul Skenes dominates? Not enough offense. Bryan Reynolds rakes? We’re still down 2–1. You get the idea.

And now Tommy Pham has joined the list of people who arrived believing in math and left believing in vibes. That's right –– Pirates culture turned a FanGraphs-loving, Baseball-Reference-refreshing stat nerd into a philosopher muttering about wind speed. We’ve officially gone too far.

Pham even has beef with Outs Above Average. Apparently, Statcast doesn’t credit him for the wind at PNC Park carrying balls into the Allegheny River, which resulted in him getting dinged defensively. (Mind you, he was still a Gold Glove finalist in left field.)

Ultimately, Pham arrived in Pittsburgh loving analytics and left questioning reality. And honestly? That's the most Pirates story ever told. Players don’t just lose games here. They lose faith –– in ownership, in probability and now, apparently, in advanced statistics. If 2025 broke Pham's relationship with analytics, just imagine what it's done to the rest of us.

When Pirates fans see Pham — baseball’s ultimate “say it with your chest” guy — look at the entire system and go, “Yeah this isn’t telling the truth" …it’s hard not to nod. Because we’ve been screaming the same thing for years.

Context matters. Environment matters. Playing for the Pirates matters. And not usually in the fun way.

Pham spent one full year around the Pirates organization and emerged a walking think-tank questioning the very foundation of modern analytics. If that doesn’t tell you everything about life in Pittsburgh baseball during the Bob Nutting era? Nothing will.

Raise the… philosophical inquiry flag, I guess.