Archive for Josh Harrison

I’ve always been a fan of Josh Harrison. It’s probably because I’m a fan of those superutility types, regardless of their actual ability to play all of the positions at which they appear. Nonetheless, there’s a certainly level of validation that comes along with actively cheering for Harrison this season. Despite the plight of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Harrison has been a steady performer to the point where WAR has him valued near the top of this year’s qualifying third basemen. It’s certainly worth exploring, though, if Harrison’s ascent in 2017 is legitimate, or if we should see him slip back down to the level of production that we’ve come to expect from him thanks to the past couple of seasons.

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One of the drawbacks of adjusting to having a weekly column is that there are only so many opportunities for features in general, let alone ones that can avoid being outdated or immediately undermined. Given that we’re still in early August, though, allow me to indulge in some samples from July for this particular column. I tried to steer clear of the big names, largely because their stock tends to remain up throughout the year. And if it doesn’t, it finds a way to right itself in relatively short order. Circumstances for each presented here are different. Some guys have seen increased opportunity for playing time at different positions while others were moving around the field and getting at-bats, only to see their respective club’s lineup solidified and land them on the bench. Either way, here’s a sampling of folks who have their stock up heading into the middle of August and the home stretch of the regular season and a few who face questions moving forward.

Stock Up

Javier Baez – There is virtually nothing that Javy Baez cannot do on a baseball field. He’s hitting for power and average while providing elite defense at a variety of positions. That type of player in invaluable. He’s only logged five games thus far in August, with the Cubs having a couple of off-days mind you, but is coming off of a month of July where he hit .325 and reached base at a .364 clip. The strikeout rate is obviously still high, as it will probably always be, but his improved approach is evident but his ever-slightly-increasing walk rate (up to 4.5% for the month of July). He didn’t hit for quite as much power as he did in June (ISO came in at .157), but he made really solid contact throughout the month, with his 15.0% soft contact rate representing his lowest of the season for any month, and a might impressive 19.3% linedrive rate. He’s not technically a starter anywhere on the depth chart, but there’s a reason that Joe Maddon is finding him at-bats on a near daily basis.

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Life isn’t all about rainbows and butterflies. With that in mind, my bold predictions include some positive outlooks for a pair of post-hype sleepers, some young hurlers, a sophomore everyone is in love with and a veteran second baseman. However, they also feature some less than rosy prognostications for a speedy second baseman, a late-blooming multi-position eligible Pirate and a pitcher trading homer-friendly Great American Ballpark for the homer-suppressing Marlins Park. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I reviewed my NFBC Draft Champions League results. I think some of my speculative saves (Joel Peralta early on; Adam Ottavino later on) could come to fruition, and I am pretty bullish on the depth of my rotation. I have a sundry of sleepers that could provide supplemental value: Daniel Norris, Randall Delgado, Jaime Garcia, Rafael Montero, Trevor Cahill and Robbie Erlin.

With that said, some of the feedback was helpful. I agree that based on my closing situation (among other things), I can’t possibly compete for the grand prize unless I get very lucky. I also do not have enough sure-thing starters to punt saves altogether to at least ensure a league win.

I don’t agree with a lack of depth on offense. I have CI/OF flexibility and a sundry of power (Justin Smoak, Travis Snider) and speed (Billy Burns, Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor) on the bench. My second catching slot is in question, but Caleb Joseph could provide some surprise value until Matt Wieters returns. I like Andrew Susac, but I need to hope for a Buster Posey or Brandon Belt injury.

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You have seen some Tout and LABR reviews for the past few weeks here on the site. We all can’t be so lucky to participate in such glorious leagues. On the other hand, we can all take part in NFBC leagues.

NFBC’s $150 NFBC Draft Champions leagues are a perfect format for me:

a) I have impending time constraints including my first child in June!

b) I didn’t have to ask my wife for permission to use our mutual bank account.

c) I was able to dwell on each pick if/when needed (8 hours to make a pick) and

d) There are no trades or free agent pick-ups once the draft is complete. This feature is my wife’s favorite, and I appreciate the preventative collusion measures. I am also much more interested in draft strategy and player projections/rankings/draft position than I am jumping on small sample sizes in-season.

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I’m a dweller in general. In slow drafts, I am the ultimate dweller. In the past, I would have ten+ tabs open at a given time when my draft slots were approaching: FanGraphs player profiles; RotoGraphs consensus rankings; Brooks Baseball Player Cards; BP’s PITCHf/x leaderboard; Rotoworld player news; the list goes on.

Then, prior to draft season, Jeff, Eno and I worked on these Arsenal Scores so that you can compare pitcher repertoires. You now have a go-to pitcher matrix if you’re dwelling on a cluster of pitchers.

Last week, Jeff Zimmerman furnished this glorious Hitter Analytics post, which provided us with a go-to hitter matrix when we’re dwelling on a cluster of hitters.

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I have never thought much about, or given much attention to, FanGraphs’ fan projections. It’s primarily a matter of stubbornness: I run my own projections, and I develop my own strategy, so why should I listen to you? At least there’s a trace of rationale behind it: I know how I created my projections (whether or not they’re any good is a topic for another day), but I have no idea how you created yours. Thus, I am more likely to blindly trust a computer-generated projection system such as Steamer instead of random fan projections.

Still, there is a sort of bizarre, secondhand wisdom to fan projections. For every person who is high on a particular player, there could be another person who is equally-and-oppositely down on him. Solicit and aggregate enough fan projections and you could produce a very reasonable prediction of a player’s performance by sheer chance.

Which is why fan projections intrigue me. If, for example, Steamer predicts the most likely outcome from a wide range of possible outcomes for a player, then the fans convey the anticipated outcome for a player. The difference between them, you could say, is what amounts to a market inefficiency (aka a price distortion). The larger the difference, the greater the inefficiency. We see these inefficiencies arise every year — 2014’s most prevalent example is probably Corey Kluber — and they typically manifest because of a lack of information about certain players.

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He’s 27 and been a role player for the Chicago Cubs minor league system and more recently the Pittsburgh Pirates over the course of a seven year career. Drafted in the sixth round, Josh Harrison was kind of classic organizational depth — a stocky yet speedy guy who could spot start in a pinch in the infield or the outfield should the need arise. And even when the need did arise over the last several seasons, the results have certainly not been worthy of attention in fantasy baseball.

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