Intangibles and Injuries
You will have to look long and hard to find a more positive and energetic player than Josh Harrison. He is part of the nucleus of Pirates that never quit and never give up, no matter the odds. Josh is a clubhouse leader who is not afraid to speak his mind. He paid his dues as a utility player and showed he belongs in the major leagues. Such players are an asset in the clubhouse because they are an inspiration for many of the young players coming up in the minor leagues. You can imagine them saying “If Josh can make it, then so can I” and you can also imagine Jay Hay cheering them on.
Unfortunately for Harrison, he has battled injuries the last two seasons. In 2015, he broke his thumb just when he was getting hot at the plate. His batting average was over .300 for the two months preceding that injury. In 2016, history repeated itself as Harrison had just started to recover at the plate, batting .298 for the month of August when he was sidelined with a leg injury. In fact, he had a ten game hitting streak going when he was shut down for the season. These injuries may be random in the grand scheme of Pirates baseball, but the timing was very unfortunate for Harrison.
Other Options
At this point, it seems like the Pittsburgh Pirates have three options for Harrison at second base. 1) trade him and bring in another experienced player, 2) trade him and give a younger player time at the positon or 3) keep him and try and help him improve his on-base percentage. Let’s review these in order.
Available free agent second basemen that would be an upgrade to Harrison are few and far between. Free agents Stephen Drew and Chase Utley would both be downgrades from Harrison. As far as a trade, Brian Dozier would be a big upgrade on the offensive side for $6M in the last year of his contract, but the Minnesota Twins would want at least one prospect in addition to Harrison. This is unlikely and why position for position trades are very rare in major league baseball.
This segues into the second option, which is to trade Harrison for solid players than can be put to use elsewhere and replace him at 2B with Adam Frazier or Alen Hanson. If only the Pittsburgh Pirates could replace Harrison with a combination of Frazier’s bat and Hanson’s glove. Frazier has shown that his bat belongs in the MLB with a .301/.356/.411 slash line over 146 at-bats. However, he has also shown a major weakness in his defense, logging 6 errors in only 90 chances. He has blown cutoff coverage and generally been out of position numerous times, which doesn’t show up on the scoresheet but definitely hits Clint Hurdle’s radar. He is young and likely this will improve with experience but for now he cannot be the Pirate’s everyday second baseman. Hanson can field the position much better than Frazier, but he is not quite there at the plate against AAA pitching. The Pirates would probably like to see Hanson put together a stretch where his AAA batting average is better than .266 (his best effort so far) over a sizeable number of at-bats before they would consider him as a replacement for Harrison.
Conclusion: Keep Jay Hay
That leaves us with option 3 for the Pittsburgh Pirates – keep Harrison and improve his OBP. Step one of this plan could be to commit to him in the leadoff spot. Based on the data, Harrison has delivered at the plate in this role. His career OBP as the #1 hitter is .344 and that includes his atrocious 3.5 percent walk rate. It is very hard for a player to suddenly increase their batting average or slugging percentage, but many players have improved their on-base percentage midway through their career by learning better plate discipline. Harrison seems like a prime candidate for this type of brainwashing.
In 2016, he had 18 walks, 138 hits and 76 strikeouts in 487 at-bats which led to his paltry .311 OBP. Now imagine that Harrison is somehow able to lay off of more pitches that are outside the strike zone – what could happen? Step two of the plan is to convince Harrison to take more walks at the expense of a few less hits and a higher strikeout percentage. If he drops his O-swing percent from 37 percent to a league average 30 percent, this would translate to 40-50 less swings. Some of these non-swings will be backwards K’s but many more would be walks. All in all, this could mean 15-20 more walks, 5-10 fewer hits and 5-10 more strikeouts (you’ll have to take our word on the math). All of a sudden, you’d have a speedy leadoff hitter with a .350 OBP and the opportunity to steal 25+ bases.
It would likely cost the Pittsburgh Pirates some valued prospects to replace Harrison’s offensive and defensive production with a known quantity. Harrison was paid $5M in 2016, ranking him near the bottom of the salary range. Going forward, he will make $7.5M in 2017 and $10M in 2018, which Spotrac expects will rank him 12th and 9th respectably among second basemen. If he delivers to his career leadoff slash line, this seems like a deal, if not an outright bargain.
Image Credit – Daniel Decker Photography
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