Today we’ll take a look at two second basemen who played for the NL All-Star team in July that have bounced up and down between the majors and minors over the past few seasons. Can they keep performing like they are this season or is the spotlight about to dim on their careers?
Josh Harrison
Yes. He plays third base, shortstop, right field and left field, but Harrison’s primary position coming up through the minor leagues was second base. Harrison’s 2014 season has been outstanding. Not only has he played strong defense at almost every position he’s found himself in but he’s also put up one of the best offensive seasons in the majors. Harrison’s batting average currently sits at .305 placing him comfortably inside the top ten of the National League. He leads the majors in runs scored since the All Star Break and only Chris Carter has more extra-base hits so far during baseball’s second half. What can we expect from Harrison moving forward though?
Let’s start by looking for some clues as to whether or not Harrison’s batting average is legitimate or just the byproduct of an incredible run of good luck. His BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is .339 which is well above the league-average mark of .300. When a player’s BABIP rises significantly above .300, sometimes the explanation is luck (bloop hits and seeing-eye singles) while sometimes there are other explanations. In the case of Josh Harrison, the average seems to be sustainable. Harrison’s BABIP exceeded .330 four times during his minor league career. His line drive this rate this year is 22.9% which is slightly above the league-average mark of 20. He’s beat out 11.9% of his ground balls to infielders for infield hits which is a big mark for a player who doesn’t possess elite speed and seems like a value likely to fall into the 5-8% range next season. Harrison’s line drive rate indicates he has the ability to make harder contact more often than an average major leaguer and his speed allows him to beat out more ground balls that go for outs for a lot of other players. Although Harrison seems likely to give back a handful of infield hits each season moving forward, these numbers suggest Josh Harrison is quite capable of keeping his batting average near the .300 mark throughout his prime years.
Next we’ll look at some power indicators. With 10 homeruns in exactly 400 plate appearances thus far in 2014, Harrison is hitting a homerun once every forty times he steps to the plate. The second best mark of his career came in 2013 when he hit a homerun once every 55.9 plate appearances between AAA and the Pirates. Also, Harrison’s ISO (isolated power) which measures how many extra bases a player hits for per at bat sits at .179 in 2014. The last two numbers he put up in this category in AAA during 2011 and 2013 were .150 and .190 respectively. In the lower levels of the minors, Harrison hit for average but not a lot of power. Over the past few seasons in the higher levels of the minors and now the majors, Harrison’s power production has begun to increase.
As a 27-year-old, this is Harrison’s first chance at extended playing time in the majors. His average (.310 and .317) and power numbers (.150 ISO and .190 ISO) during his last extended periods in AAA in 2011 and 2013 improved during each season and he now he’s carrying that success over to the MLB level. An average around .300 with around 10 homeruns seem to be numbers Harrison can replicate throughout the next few years.
Dee Gordon
Dee Gordon was supposed to be good. Baseball America ranked him as the best prospect in the Dodgers system and the twenty-sixth best prospect in baseball heading into the 2010 season. He performed well in limited action during his first chance with the Dodgers in 2011 but then struggled and was demoted to the minors when given a starting job in 2012. He earned his way back to the Dodgers in 2013 after playing most of the season in the minors but was again disappointing in the majors. He was given the chance to start at second base for the Dodgers this season when Alex Gurrero came over from Cuba and wasn’t deemed ready to start the season in the majors. Gordon hasn’t looked back since earning a berth on the NL All-Star team while leading the majors with 56 steals and hitting a respectable .285.
Even more so than Harrison, Gordon’s elite speed should let him beat out well more than his fair share of ground balls to infielders so his BABIP of .339 doesn’t necessarily indicate luck. Gordon has earned a hit on 11.1% of his ground balls to infielders and has reached based with a hit on 41.7% of his bunt attempts this year. Gordon also hits more line drives than the typical major leaguer with a rate of 22.1% of his batted balls qualifying as line drives. His ability to make solid contact and use his speed to his advantage seem to indicate his BABIP isn’t something that’s been inflated by luck. He used these skills to sustain BABIPs above .340 four different times during his minor league career. As long as Gordon keeps the ball out of the air, it seems an average at or just beneath .300 is a neighborhood he can expect to find himself in for years to come.
There’s not much need to analyze Gordon’s speed. He’s stolen over 50 bases each of his full seasons in professional baseball with the exception of his tough 2012. His speed is rivaled by few at the MLB level and since he’s only 26-years-old, there’s no reason to think he’s going to lose a step at any point during the next few seasons.
Wrap-Up
Harrison is pretty good at a lot of things while Gordon is the best in baseball at stealing bases. Both Gordon and Harrison are doing things in the majors this year they’ve shown they can do in the minors. With both players in the middle of their prime years, it doesn’t seem as if either player is a one-and-done All-Star.
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