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Ever since the trades of Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole and the subsequent trade demand of Josh Harrison, it has seemed like a guarantee that Harrison would be the next Pirates player dealt by general manager Neal Huntington.
That may not be the case.
With pitchers and catchers set to arrive in Bradenton in 20 days, there hasn’t been much movement on the Harrison front and recent reports suggest the Bucs may hold onto him for the time being.
Huntington keeps saying he wants to put a winner on the field and while it may not look that way on paper, he may elect to start the season with Harrison and look to move him sometime prior to the trade deadline during the season.
Peter Gammons of Gammons Daily looked into that and more on the Pirates and noted that he also expects Harrison to spend the first two or three months of the season in Pittsburgh.
Is it the right move to hold onto Harrison?
Giving the fan backlash at the front office, they may feel it might lighten some of the public criticism of the front office, but quite honestly that ship has sailed and it could be a very long time before the front office is back in good graces with the fan base, Harrison trade or not.
Harrison is coming off a nice 2017 campaign in which he slashed .272/.339/.432 with a career-high 16 homers.
Huntington could be banking on another big season increasing trade value as the deadline nears.
That could be risky though as Harrison has had trouble putting together back-to-back good seasons in his career.
While the Harrison rumors seemed to have died down for now, it will be interesting to see if anything picks up as spring training nears.
For now, with every passing day, it looks likely that Harrison could be wearing a Pirates uniform come Opening Day.
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