2016 Pittsburgh Pirates projections – Josh Harrison

All Josh Harrison has to do is replace the Pittsburgh Kid at second base. No pressure or anything.

This off-season the writers at Pirates Breakdown will take a look at two different sets of projections for meaningful players on the roster and give you, the readers, their take on whether or not they think said player will meet, surpass, or fall below those projections. The projections for Steamer and ZiPs (created by Dan Szymborski) can be found on fangraphs.com. Catch up on the rest of our projections HERE.

Josh Harrison had a huge breakout season in 2014, initially as a utility player before settling in at third base. He wasn’t bad by any means in 2015, but he had some trouble staying healthy and he lost his third base job to the magnificent Jung Ho Kang. Don’t feel too bad for Harrison, as he now finds himself as the starting second baseman and to some acclaim. Recently MLB Network’s shredder rated Harrison the fifth-best second baseman in baseball right now, ahead of such notables as Dee Gordon and the former Pittsburgher Neil Walker.

It shouldn’t be fully surprising that people expect Harrison to play well at second base. It’s easily his best defensive position, as he has a career 1.6UZR/150 and a RngR of 1.1 there. Those are positional highs for the former super utility player, so he should easily be able to field the position at a very respectable level.

Defense is only one part of the equation for Harrison; how does he project to hit in 2016? He is coming off an up and down 2015, but he did manage some flashes of his 2014 All-Star form. Will 2016 be a return to form for Harrison?

The first notable thing is that both projections have Harrison hitting .282 with a .321 on-base percentage, which is slightly lower than his career average of .284 and slightly higher than his career on-base percentage of .318. I actually think this is a fairly solid projection for Harrison and definitely would consider 2016 a success if hit to those numbers.

There really isn’t much of a difference between his ZiPS and Steamer projections overall. ZiPS has him hitting two less home runs, scoring three less runs, stealing one less base, and worth .2 less WAR. The most noteworthy difference between the two projections are RBIs and hits. Steamer has Harrison getting 29 more hits and driving in 16 more runs.

Harrison likely has more pressure on him than at any point during his big league career. He’s replacing an extremely popular hometown hero and is trying to have a bounce-back season at the same time. No pressure or anything, Josh.

Will Harrison be able to successfully replace Neil Walker? I see no reason why not. He should be a step up defensively from where Walker was in 2015 and his bat should be more 2014 than 2015. I think Harrison will play well for the Pirates and prove the front office right for picking him as Walker’s positional replacement. There’s a lot of pressure on Harrison and I think he’s going to relish the opportunity to play second base every day for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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