Harrison Extended

[Darkstone42]

Josh Harrison has been signed through 2018 with club options for 2019 and 2020.

Pirates and Josh Harrison agree to long-term deal | pirates.com

$27.3 million guaranteed, and the option years are for a combined $23 million.

Pretty good dollars if Jay-Hay just stays above average for the duration, especially considering his positional versatility.

 

[element1286]

Good for JHay, decent deal for the Pirates.

I'm not sold his bat is as good as last year, but the position versatility and great IF defense gives him a high floor.

 

[steelparrot]

Not a bad deal for the Pirates, even if he turns into a .700ops bench bat his contract wont be an albatross, just a waste of 7-8 mill for the last 2 guaranteed years.

It is another reason not extend Walker, with Walker and Alvarez being 2/3 of our left handed bats in the lineup, they need to be replaced with LH hitters.

That wont be hard at 1st base, depending on his production, we might be able to upgrade Alvarez without giving up to much. But getting a good hitting 2nd/3rd baseman will be costly.

 

[Darkstone42]

Good for JHay, decent deal for the Pirates.

I'm not sold his bat is as good as last year, but the position versatility and great IF defense gives him a high floor.

Really, he only has to be average offensively to make the deal worth it with his versatility, defense, and baserunning value, and that doesn't seen too far-fetched. With a BABIP in line with his minor league career (.310 or so), he is roughly average, so it seems like a reasonably floor.

If the increased fly ball rates are real, though, his BABIP should be higher, and he should continue to hit for more power than he had in the past, so wRC+ in the area of 110 seems to me like a reasonable expectation, and that would make him a 2.5-3 WAR player for most of the contract with the defense and baserunning.

 

[thecrow124]

I have always been higher on Harrison than most, so I like the deal. I believe in that bat, and don't understand why everyone keeps talking about regression. He has hit .300 everywhere, and last year changed his approach and increased his line drive rate. His BABIP may be a bit of a concern, but he is a spray hitter and that should keep the number at least above league average.

 

[Darkstone42]

I have always been higher on Harrison than most, so I like the deal. I believe in that bat, and don't understand why everyone keeps talking about regression. He has hit .300 everywhere, and last year changed his approach and increased his line drive rate. His BABIP may be a bit of a concern, but he is a spray hitter and that should keep the number at least above league average.

I think the bigger changes are not the increase in line drives (which take a long time to stabilize, so that could have just been noise), but the huge drop in GB%, the significant drop in IFFB%, and the big uptick in FB%. That both allowed him to improve his BABIP and hit for more power. Even if the LD% drops back to ~20%, which is where it was for his career (17-22) before last season, those differences in his batted ball profile do make him a better hitter than he was before anyway.

 

[element1286]

I have always been higher on Harrison than most, so I like the deal. I believe in that bat, and don't understand why everyone keeps talking about regression. He has hit .300 everywhere, and last year changed his approach and increased his line drive rate. His BABIP may be a bit of a concern, but he is a spray hitter and that should keep the number at least above league average.

He's always hit at every level, just the spike in power I'm not sold on. And that is a spiraling effect, because if the power isn't real, there is no reason for a pitcher to be scared of throwing him strikes. I don't think any of that will happen, but I think it could. But his skill set is pretty similar, IMO, to Freddy Sanchez and he never looked back after his breakout season.