Josh Harrison’s only played 53 games as a Pirate, but it’s pretty easy to see that Pirate fans (and the broadcasting crew) have taken to the guy awfully quickly. It’s not hard to figure out why, either. At 5’8″, he looks every bit the scrappy underdog (there is a trend here, which can also be observed in Mike McKenry) and he’s always running hard and getting his uniform dirty and he just looks the part of a fan favorite. He’s gotten some hits, too, and his .265 average is pretty sparkling in comparison to Pedro Alvarez’s long flirtation with the Mendoza line this year.
Except here’s the thing: Harrison’s only drawn two walks in 171 plate appearances. That’s one walk every 85 plate appearances. His on-base percentage is .277, which is awful. His wOBA, which takes on-base percentage and weights it for extra base hits to give a better overall picture of offensive performance than just combining OBP and SLG the way OPS does, is also .277. That is also terrible (wOBA is scaled to on base percentage, the way FIP is to ERA). In short, this means that Harrison’s not getting on base, and he’s not getting a ton of extra base hits to make up for his lack of on base skill. If Harrison keeps walking at the rate he’s walking in 2011, he’d have to hit .330 to even begin to approach being a useful offensive player.
Harrison’s a very young guy in his first big league season. His minor league walk rate has generally hovered around 5% (his current walk rate with the Pirates is 1.8%) and his career minor league batting average is .306, which gives him a career minor league OBP of .355. That would obviously be much more acceptable, and so there’s room for the guy to grow and room to hope that as he plays in the Majors more he’ll feel more comfortable taking some pitches. But everyone needs to stop pretending like he’s having a good rookie season at the plate. He’s not. He’s having an awful year at the plate with the Pirates in 2011, and if he can’t learn how to take a walk he’s probably not going to be a Major League baseball player.
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