When the Mets signed Tommy Pham to a one-year, $6 million deal last offseason, it was met with mixed reviews. However, the outfielder quickly showed it was a good move and forced his way into regular playing time before getting traded at the deadline. Team owner Steve Cohen also felt it was necessary to clear some things up on Monday morning.
Pham and the Arizona Diamondbacks were in San Diego this weekend to play the Padres. While waiting to hit on deck, Pham appeared to get into a verbal altercation with fans sitting nearby:
Tommy Pham getting into it with a fan 👀pic.twitter.com/VA9oJjot6H
— The Game Day MLB (@TheGameDayMLB) August 19, 2023
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In addition to that, Pham talked about another incident that happened outside of the stadium:
On top of his fan altercation in the first inning, Tommy Pham described another outside the team hotel:
"She was drunk. 'F you, Tommy Pham, that's why we got rid of you.' I'm like, 'Lady, I reached free agency. They didn't get rid of me … In fact, they tried to re-sign me.'" pic.twitter.com/2Ip6akATfF
— Jesse Friedman (@JesseNFriedman) August 19, 2023
Here was another response from Pham to the initial incident before he stepped into the batter’s box:
Since this guy wants to block me and act like his friend is a model citizen I’ll put 100k up if he passes a lie detector test saying he didn’t call me a piece of shit if he doesn’t pass which he won’t mlb bans him for life from all stadiums pic.twitter.com/E3PqXJB32z
— Tommy Pham (@TphamLV) August 20, 2023
Naturally, that led to some grumblings within Mets Twitter. Sure, Pham was a prime candidate to get traded because of his performance, the Mets’ lack of performance, and his contract status. But was he the “problem” people are trying to pinpoint in the clubhouse amid a disappointing season?
An X user asked that question. Cohen had obviously seen enough of these takes to address it himself. That’s exactly what he did here, despite not being tagged in the post:
I will clear up any misperception about Tommy Pham. He was a great guy and a terrific teammate. He played his heart out as a Met
— Steven Cohen (@StevenACohen2) August 21, 2023
That was Cohen’s first post on X since June 27th (when it was still called Twitter). Clearly, a nerve was struck here.
While Pham has had some incidents in the past (like, you know, slapping Joc Pederson over a fantasy football dispute), it didn’t appear as though anything negative happened during his short time in Queens. We have Steve Cohen backing up that speculation, too, so now we can just let it rest.
You can reach Matt Musico at matt.musico@xlmedia.com. You can follow him on X: @mmusico8.
