In a season when a few key hitters of the Pittsburgh Pirates have either under performed or missed some or all of the season so far , one particular player has had a bounce back year of sorts to help keep the ship afloat.
Josh Harrison has quietly become the most consistent hitter in the Pittsburgh Pirates everyday lineup, and he is easing the concern of some with his best season since 2014.
After posting a 1.8 WAR in the previous two seasons, fans and management alike were probably wondering if the deal extended to Josh Harrison was a mistake or not. So far this season Harrison has put up numbers that could easily surpass what he did in his breakout season in 2014.
So far this season Harrison has been worth 2.2 WAR, and his closest teammate (Adam Frazier) is well behind him at 1.2. Harrison has done this with improvements in a number of areas. First and foremost, he is getting on base at a better clip than he has ever before in his career. In 307 plate appearances so far, he has walked 20 times. His career high is 22, which was done in 550 plate appearances. At this rate Harrison will set a personal bests in walks by the end of June.
Unfortunately, one reason that his on-base percentage sits at a lofty .370 is due to his uncanny ability to get hit with pitches this season. Harrison currently leads the league with 15 painful free trips to first, a total that is more than double his previous career high.
There are a number of reasons to believe that Harrison has put the last two seasons in the rear view mirror. His BABIP is .327 and this is fairly similar to what he has done in his career so far. Last year that number was .323 and his career average is .321 so it’s not like his is all of the sudden having much better luck at finding the grass rather than a glove. Even though he did have a .336 BABIP during one of his considered down years, his jump in hard hits this year is another positive in 2017.
Hitting it hard
His batted ball data at Fangraphs is helping to boost his offense in 2017. His hard hit percentage sits at 32.2, the second highest it has ever been for him. His career year in 2014 saw him register hard hits 31.8 percent of the time, so that is encouraging to see. In 2014, year that Harrison earned his extension, he pulled the ball 45.4 percent of his hits. 2015 and 2016, the two years that were concerning, he pulled the ball 35.5 and 40.7 percent of the time. This season half of his hits are going to left field, so it appears that Harrison is more successful at the plate when he tries less to spray the ball over the field and instead take it to left field.
The similarities between 2014 and this season do not end there. He hit flyballs 38.7 percent of the time in 2014 and has hit them 38.5 percent this year. He had a similar groundball percentage three years ago (37.3) as he does this year (37.6). So it really comes down to whether or not to believe that he
His home run to flyball ratio this year is 9.5, which would also be the second highest in his career if he can keep this pace up. He was at 7.7 percent in 2014, so he has seen a very slight increase compared to this season.
Josh Harrison has quietly become the most consistent hitter for the Pirates this season. Quietly is a funny way to describe anything Harrison does on the baseball field considering this:
[mlbvideo id=”1394600283″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /]And then this about a month later:
[mlbvideo id=”1507873783″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /]But at the plate, he has quietly put up the best WAR among the regulars on the Pittsburgh Pirates and could very well match the production that he had during the season when he finished ninth in the NL MVP voting and earned the extension that just a year ago was making people wonder if it was a mistake. At this pace, Harrison is putting those doubt firmly to rest.
Image credit – Daniel Decker Photography
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