Tommy Pham’s final career push doesn’t belong in Pittsburgh

Tommy Pham chasing 200 homers and 200 steals is a cool baseball story. It just shouldn’t be a Pittsburgh Pirates story anymore.

In The Athletic, the writing team laid out Pham’s mission: Pham, now 37, would like to keep playing until he gets to that 200–200 plateau. He’s sitting at 149 home runs and 131 steals over 12 seasons, and says he’ll play “however long that takes.”  Admirable? Absolutely. But the math, and the Pirates’ timeline, make it a terrible fit.

Pirates shouldn’t be the team that hosts Tommy Pham’s milestone tour

He’s still 51 homers and 69 steals shy of his goal. Over the last three seasons, Pham has hovered around 12 home runs and 11 steals a year. At that clip, you’re asking for four or five fully healthy seasons just to touch the home run mark and six or more to chase down the steals. 

That’s not a “final push.” That’s a second career and last we checked — with all due respect — Pham ain’t no Rickey Henderson.

Meanwhile, the Pirates are supposed to be climbing, not killing time. They’ve finally stacked up a rotation worth getting loud about, fronted by Paul Skenes, and the mandate now is simple: put a real lineup behind those arms. This offense just finished at the bottom of the league in runs scored. Pittsburgh doesn’t have the luxury of handing out at-bats for a personal milestone tour when they should be using every plate appearance to figure out which young bats actually belong on the next winning Pirates team.

And yes, there’s always room for Andrew McCutchen, or at least there should be. McCutchen is a franchise pillar, a living, breathing chapter of Pirates history. You make exceptions for statues-in-waiting. Even then, the front office is already wrestling with what his final act in black and gold should look like. 

Pham doesn’t come with that emotional equity. Pittsburgh already got its Tommy Pham moment: a short-term, veteran stopgap who brought some professionalism and edge to a young clubhouse.  It’s fine that it happened. It’s also fine, and necessary, to say “thanks, but no thanks” on turning PNC Park into the backdrop for his personal 200–200 tour.

Let a win-now club with a short window and a DH opening rent out the last few chapters of Pham’s career. Or just go to the Rockies, they could use a nostalgia act. The Pirates have bigger problems to solve, and their next era shouldn’t be built around someone else’s countdown.