Pittsburgh Pirates: Revisiting Josh Harrison’s Tenure

Josh Harrison served as an extrmely valuable member of the Pittsburgh Pirates roster for his abiity to play multiple positions, his base running ability and occasionally putting up solid numbers with the bat.

Josh Harrison was considered one of our best Pittsburgh Pirates players of the decade. He came in at our number 8 spot of the best Pirate players of the decade, and for a good reason.

He was an extremely productive member of the Pittsburgh Pirates when you take into consideration the defense he provided at many different positions. Today, let’s go over his tenure with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Josh Harrison was originally a 6th round pick of the Chicago Cubs in 2008. But he didn’t last long in the Cubs’ system. In June 2009, the Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Harrison, along with pitchers Jose Ascaino and Kevin Hart for John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny. Eventually, Harrison worked his way up though the minors, and made the majors in 2011.

Harrison was a light hitting, speedy utility bench player for the first few years of his career. Harrison had seen playing time at third base, second base, shortstop, and corner outfield from his debut 2011 season up through 2013. Plus, he racked up 13 stolen bases and 2.1 base running runs above average in these first 3 seasons.

But his bat wasn’t anything to write home about. In his first 575 plate appearances of his career, the utility man hit just .250/.282/.367. That was good for an abysmal 80 OPS+ and 78 wRC+. But that all changed in 2014.

Again, Harrison entered the season with low expectations. Just serve as a bench utility guy, and basically just play wherever the Pittsburgh Pirates needed him to, which he did. Although Harrison saw most of his time at third base, he also saw a decent amount of action in left field, right field, and second base. But it was his bat that made him stand out.

In 550 plate appearances, Harrison hit .315/.347/.490 with 13 home runs, and 38 doubles en route to a 133 OPS+, 137 wRC+ and 124 DRC+. Just to add on to that, Harrison stole 18 bags and posted 3.4 base running runs above average. Speaking of his base running, you can’t forget about the two rundowns he got into one month apart from each other in July and August.

Like I said, he played multiple positions, but he played those multiple positions extremely well. At the hot corner, J-Hay had +11 DRS, a 3.6 UZR, 1 range runs above average, and 8.7 UZR/150. But at second base he had +2 DRS/.3 UZR/0.1 range runs and overall in the outfield he had +3 DRS/-1.7 UZR. Harrison’s overall dWAR was 1.7, and in total, had a WAR of 5.7 per Baseball Reference.

After his outstanding 2014 campaign, Harrison was rewarded with a 4-year, $27.3 million extension at the beginning of 2015, but Harrison’s bat would take a big step downward. In an injury limited 449 plate appearances, Harrison hit just .287/.327/.390. He was considered a slightly below average batter with a 97 OPS+ and 98 wRC+. Like with his bat, Harrison’s glove also saw some regression. He had negative marks in UZR at third base (-1.3), and in the outfield (-2.2), and was at average in terms of UZR at second base (0.2) despite playing over 100 more innings at the keystone.

Harrison took yet another step back in 2016 offensively. He registered his lowest OPS and rate metrics of his career so far in a full season. Harrison posted a .283/.311/.388 line in 522 plate appearances, clocking in with a sub-.700 OPS. J-Hay had an OPS+ and wRC+ of 86, and 84 DRC+. But his defense bounced back a bit, this time nearly exclusively seeing time at second base. Harrison had +9 DRS, -1.2 range runs, and -1 UZR. He also reached the 1.0+ defensive WAR mark at 1.2. Plus he stole 19 bags, a career high and was 3 base running runs above average.

At this point, Harrison’s 2014 season seemed like an outlier. He seemed to regress back to a light hitting, but in 2017, Harrison put up a second above average offensive season. Harrison appeared in 124 games and stepped to the plate 542 times. Overall, he batted .272/.339/.432 and reached a career high in home runs with 16. Harrison posted a 103 OPS+, 104 wRC+ and 105 DRC+, which represent overall solid numbers. Especially considering the defensive value Harrison brought in 2017. Josh mainly played second base but also saw a decent amount of time at the hot corner. He finally finished with a positive UZR (.4) and range runs (1.6) at second base along with having a +7 DRS mark. He also had solid marks at third (+1 DRS, 1.0 UZR, 0.2 range runs above average).

2018 would end up being Harrison last season with the Pittsburgh Pirates. His last season sadly didn’t go over so well. He ended up hitting just .250/.293/.363 and 80 OPS+/77 wRC+, all of which are career low marks. He did miss a good chunk of 2018 as well being limited to less than 100 games and 374 plate appearances. He also posted poor defensive numbers at second base with 0 DRS, -2.1 UZR and negative 4.4 UZR/150. Those were the lowest marks he had at second in a season where he played there for at least 500 innings.

The Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t pick up Harrison’s option for 2019. After all, $10.5 million option is a bit pricey for any team for a utility infielder who was in decline, had a solid, but overall replaceable bat and had a handful of injuries the past few seasons. Plus there was no real reason to pick it up after Adam Frazier had a much better season (.798 OPS, 118 OPS+) and showed he was ready for regular playing time.

Josh Harrison never may have been the best batter the Pirates had, but a lot of the value he provided was the defense he could had at multiple positions, and the base running. Harrison posted a 4.2 defensive WAR between 2014 and 2017, averaging about 1.1 per season. Players who post a 1+ dWAR are some of the top defenders in baseball. In those 4 seasons, he got playing time at every position except for pitcher, catcher, center field and first base. His 10.6 base running runs above average put him at 42nd in baseball from 2014-2017.