Who Will Join Pirates' Third Base Shuffle Next Year?

As wizard pointed out, Harrison would have to have a slugging percentage near .500 to have an OPS of .800. Unless he becomes Ryan Braun or Chipper Jones over the winter, that ain’t happening.

His defense was okay. Not good, not bad.

• Last season only 29 players in the NL of the 145 with enough qualified at bats posted an OPS of .800 or greaters. That’s the top 20% of hitters.

• Of those 29 players, the lowest slugging percentage was .456 by Andrew McCutchen.

• Of players with at least 190 at bats, 21% posted an OPS of .800 or greaters.

• Harrison ranked dead last in baseball last season with a 1.5% walk rate. It was the 11th worst of all time since 1980 for players with at least 190 at bats.

• Could Harrison improve that walk rate? Considering it was the worst in all of baseball, sure. There’s plenty of room for improvement.

On what planet is Josh Harrison ranked in the top 20% of hitters, slugging like Andrew McCutchen and improving from the worst in baseball to adequate with his walk rate? Suggesting he’ll post an OPS of .800 may be one of the dumbest things ever said on the internets.

2013/2014 and so on may not matter as well if Pedro doesnt work out the kinks, this could work hand in hand

Yes, I guess we do disagree. I’m all for sticking with Pedro, but I think there’s a level ineptitude that calls for sending him to the bench or the minors for an extended period of time. Moreover, if his defense regresses next season, it might be time to start the transition to first base.

I thought the rationale for moving him to 2nd was the Iwamura meltdown + being blocked by Pedro

I think the rationale for moving Walker was because he wasn’t doing much with the bat in the minors and he was willing to do anything possible to try and get himself onto the major league roster.

I can’t for the life of me understand taking a guy who has worked his butt off trying to learn a new position at the major league level, is finally starting to show some comfort in what he’s doing, is your starting 2B for the foreseeable future and moving him because your 3B is having problems.

I also, for the life of me, can’t understand moving a guy, who’s almost complete value to the team would be his hitting, into a brand new position, when he can’t hit when he’s playing the position he’s most comfortable.

It just doesn’t add up. You want to leave your good players alone. Would you suggest moving Andrew McCutchen to 1B? No, why?? Is it because he can’t do it? Of course not. It’s because you don’t want to mess with one of your better players and take him out of his comfort level. That’s how I feel about Walker.

And Alvarez. Moving him to 1B (at this point in time) solves zero problems.

So, basically, you’ve made 3B worse, you’ve made 2B worse and you’ve made 1B, worse. I guess the Pirates can make up for all of this messing around by bringing in an All-Star SS.

both Walker and Alvarez showed improvement defensively in 2011.

theres no reason to think that they wont continue this improvement.

because Pedro can’t hit. I’d rather solve the problem at 3B, then totally throw the infield around to try and band-aid the situation.

But his value is his bat. I imagine his number one priority is (and should be) his bat.

If he ends up a star, it will be because of his bat. If he plays at all, it will be because of his bat.

Moving him around doesn’t improve his bat (maybe, just maybe as a DH), and it just might hurt it more. That’s a chance I certainly wouldn’t want to see the Pirates make.

If the team has no intention to ever more him to 1B (and they’ve shown no indication they do) then he should not be doing any of this since he’s still weak at 3B. He should be mastering the position he plays and still isn’t good at yet. Working on throwing accuracy, side to side quickness, hand-eye coordination and so on.

Pick up Don Kelly. He’s the only active major leaguer to play all nine positions.

pedro was out early working on his reps at 3B quite often in 2011.

“why didn’t Vanderbilt move him to 3B 1B?”

and you used your own “direct observation” too… UZR be damned!!!!

bwahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I know this is just a semantics argument. All I saying is that say, for simplicity’s sake defense is on a scale of 1-100. Average player is a 50, Excellent players are an 80. Best ever at the position are 100. Say Pedro, as a 3B is a 30. Perhaps are a 1B, he’s a 5. At any other position on the field, he’s a 2. 3B could very well be the position that he plays the best, even if he’s not very good at it, he could be LESS WORSE there, than at any other position.

I believe there is a more credible argument to be made to have him start the season at MLB

That is your opinion, of course. He’s hit decently in MLB too— if only that was all that mattered.

at some point we need to figure out if he can hit MLB pitching and why not during a season that doesn’t matter as opposed to one that does?

Do you really think he’s gonna be a star? If yes, then shouldn’t you use as less as possible of his ML service time in years that don’t matter? Esp when there’s clearly an argument to be made for him starting in AAA.

Unless that player isn’t ready yet for MLB pitching and if the team would be strongly risking the player not reaching their potential by being tossed into the fire. We aren’t going to start Josh Bell in the majors next year, though we also need to eventually find out if he can hit MLB pitching.

They could have traded someone less good for a couple bullpen pieces. I don’t believe the Nady trade was good for the Yankees just because they won a WS afterwards.

but not guaranteed. Theo is gone now; who knows how the callups are going to be handled.