Josh Harrison’s early “success”

The Pirates have a void in right field that will soon be filled by Gregory Polanco.* The plan at the beginning of the season was to rely on some combination of Travis Snider and Jose Tabata to hold down the position until Polanco was “ready” (in reality, just long enough to ensure that Polanco doesn’t have a 4th arbitration year). So how did the Pirates end up with Josh Harrison, a utility infielder who reminds me of Mighty Mouse (we’re actually the same height) in right field? Succinctly put, Snider and Tabata performed poorly, and are still performing poorly when they sporadically play. Here are their stats so far this season:

Snider 2014: 108 PA, 3 HR, 11.1% BB, 22.2% K, .211/.299/.326, .116 ISO, .285 wOBA, 80 wRC+, .250 BABIP, -0.2 fWAR

Tabata 2014: 114 PA, 0 HR, 2.6% BB, 16.7% K, .269/.301/.324, .056 ISO, .280 wOBA, 76 wRC+, .326 BABIP, -0.3 fWAR

It’s still early in the season and statistics clearly haven’t stabilized yet, but based on track record it’s not likely either of these players develops into even a second division regular. Here are their career numbers:

Snider: 1455 PA, 40 HR, 8.2% BB, 26.3% K, .239/.303/.393, .154 ISO, .305 wOBA, 87 wRC+, .304 BABIP, 0.8 fWAR

Tabata: 1652 PA, 17 HR, 7.4% BB, 14.5% K, .274/.336/.380, .107 ISO, .319 wOBA, 101 wRC+, .316 BABIP, 2.9 fWAR

For whatever reason (in Snider’s case part BABIP), both players are playing below their career norms right now. Tabata’s not getting on base enough to balance out his lack of power, Snider’s not hitting for enough power to balance out his inability to get on base. That Clint Hurdle likes to bat Snider first because he thinks he gets on base is perplexing, to say the least. But for sure, neither player has performed well enough for the organization to not consider other alternatives. For the moment that alternative is Josh Harrison. Perhaps calling him a utility infielder isn’t fair, because even before this season he had logged 145.2 innings in the outfield, but if you look at Harrison, he doesn’t look like an outfielder. He’s 5 foot 8, 200 pounds listed, and he doesn’t exude the power hitting corner outfielder prototype. His bat hasn’t played like a corner outfielder either, putting up the following stat line over his Major League career:

Harrison: 642 PA, 9 HR, 3.0% BB, 12.8% K, .254/.287/.382, .128 ISO, .292 wOBA, 83 wRC+, .280 BABIP, 1.8 WAR

Harrison’s a high contact, low on base, low power guy. He can play third base a little and won’t really embarrass himself anywhere in the field, but he’s not someone you can plug into a position and expect his glove to make up for his bat, which is below average. Since he came to the majors, Harrison has swung at 38% of pitches outside the strike zone (league average is around 30%). He makes contact on pitches outside the zone at an above average rate as well. That O-Swing% almost definitely hurts Harrison’s ability to get on base via the walk, and limits his value. It might also limit his ability to drive pitches for extra-bases, not that there’s a lot of power potential in a player Harrison’s size. Surprisingly, in the small sample that is Harrison’s 2014 season he’s put up some interesting numbers:

Harrison 2014: 67 PA, 2 HR, 6.0% BB, 16.4% K, .286/.328/.504, .222 ISO, .362 wOBA, 132 wRC+, .320 BABIP, 0.6 WAR

It’s these numbers that have catapulted Harrison from the bench into the starting right field spot, and it isn’t hard to see why. He’s outperforming his career norms nearly across the board, and outperforming the other two competitors for the spot. However, it’s 67 plate appearances. That’s nothing. If Harrison’s still doing this at 200 plate appearances, then maybe he’s turned into something more than the utility infielder who’s an acceptable bench player. It isn’t likely that he’ll get enough plate appearances to try and convince anyone he can be more than what he is though. Gregory Polanco’s waiting to take his spot in the lineup.

 

*If you write the name Gregory Polanco in a post, it guarantees at least ten or twelve views. People just love seeing that name.

**Also, as I wrote this, in the bottom of the 5th inning against the Washington Nationals, Harrison has gone 1/2 with a walk and a run scored. Clearly he’s the best.

Sliding Headfirst

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the dangers of a player sliding headfirst rather than feet-first. When sliding headfirst, a player exposes his hands and fingers potential injury, either from the opposing player’s cleats or the base itself. There’s a simple solution to this problem though, one that would allow players to slide headfirst and not worry (as much) about the danger. For a while now, Starling Marte and some other players have been wearing what looks like an oven mitt on his right hand as protection against injury. If everyone did this, it could at least provide data on the effectiveness of the device in preventing injury. It’s logical to think that at the very least, a mitten would keep the player’s fingers from being jammed against the base, but it’s unclear if it could prevent damage from cleats stepping on a players hand. And though it would look stupid, it would be better if players wore the device on both hands (assuming there’s not loss of speed), even though it would look really stupid at first. Just something to keep an eye on.