We shouldn't care if Tommy Pham is traded to the Phillies

One of the latest New York Mets rumors comes courtesy of USA Today’s Bob Nightengale who reports the Philadelphia Phillies would love to land Tommy Pham. A piece we should fully expect the Mets to move in the next week, the idea of trading with the Phillies is never so easy.

Are the Juan Samuel scars still painful? The Mets and Phillies have made plenty of trades at the deadline in the past and even recently. Easily the longest and probably most bitter rival of all of the Mets, we shouldn’t care if Pham ends up in Philly.

Mets rumors linking the Phillies to Tommy Pham shouldn’t have us hesitant of a move

Trading with a division rival in a lost season only has one downside: what if Pham helps the Phillies win a World Series? Mets fans won’t want to see it and yet how many other teams out there would anyone willingly accept taking a championship?

Once your team is out of the running, there are the teams you hate to see win and the ones you wouldn’t mind seeing raise a championship trophy. The Phillies are universally in the former, but if a Pham trade can help the Mets in the future, it’s worth making.

The Mets and Phillies haven’t made a trade since the 2019 Jason Vargas for Austin Bossart swap. A year earlier, the Mets sent Asdrubal Cabrera and Jose Bautista to the Phillies in separate deals. Prior to the Cabrera deal, exactly 17 years had gone by since the teams last made a trade. In 2001, the Phillies and Mets made a pair of moves in the same week. Catchers Todd Pratt and Gary Bennett changed teams. Days later, Adam Walker and Bruce Chen went to New York for Dennis Cook and Turk Wendell.

Pham’s trade market goes well beyond just the Phillies. It even extends to the New York Yankees who could use a real left fielder on their roster. Oddly, it feels far more likely for Pham to end up with the Phillies than it does for him to wear Yankees pinstripes this year.

Should it matter where Pham gets traded? The best return is where it matters most.