Every time I hear about Harris getting regular time at third base, I think of Casey Blake. Is it a fair comparison? I'm not entirely sure, but here I go (again? on my own?):
.295/.363/.469, .832 OPS -- Brendan Harris, minors
.292/.371/.469, .840 OPS -- Casey Blake, minors
More or less identical, really. And if anything, Harris accumulated his minor league numbers at a younger age.
.267/.324/.396, .720 OPS, 91 OPS+ -- Brendan Harris, MLB, through age 28
.232/.304/.339, .643 OPS, 67 OPS+ -- Casey Blake, MLB, through age 28
Now, of course, Blake didn't get all that many PA in the majors through that point, but it's not as though he really distinguished himself in the PA that he did get. Now, let's add to the Harris and Blake minor league lines a third line:
.295/.363/.469, .832 OPS -- Brendan Harris, minors
.292/.371/.469, .840 OPS -- Casey Blake, minors
.299/.354/.480, .833 OPS -- Danny Valencia, minors
And in terms of strikeouts and walks, we have:
.18 K/PA, .08 BB/PA -- Valencia, minors
.17 K/PA, .10 BB/PA -- Blake, minors
.15 K/PA, .09 BB/PA -- Harris, minors
Anyway, I'm starting to lose focus. Blake wasn't given a chance to start regularly until he was 29. And now years after that, his career OPS of .788 isn't all that different from his minor league career OPS of .840. From age 29-31, Blake was worth about 2.3 WAR/year--a roughly league average player.
I never really believed in Harris as a middle infielder. He was primarily a third baseman in the minors, and if he hits better when given less defensive responsibility, he wouldn't be the first player that did so. (Had he been a Twins farmhand, I have no doubt that many Twins fans would be calling for the Twins to quit jerking him around and give him a chance to hit regularly.) If the Twins go into the year with Harris as the primary third baseman and stick with the plan, I think it could work out pretty well. He's not going to be an All-Star, but he could be a decent regular.
When the Twins kept Jason Kubel instead of letting him walk, they showed faith in a lefty slugger with bad knees and no real defensive position--faith that they didn't show in David Ortiz. By keeping Harris and giving him a chance to play regularly at third base, they would be showing faith in a defensively-challenged hitter who hit well in the minors but has yet to prove himself in the majors--faith that they didn't show in Casey Blake. There are no guarantees that it will work out, but there is reason to believe that it could work. And if it doesn't work, it's a low-stakes gamble backed by the chance that Valencia can fill the role adequately.
Ubes, how does Harris project at third defensively? Because I could be comfortable with that kind of offensive production if his defense at the position is at least average or slightly above. I know his arm is pretty strong and his limited range is less of a factor at third, but he doesn't have the softest hands around and you have to be able to make clean picks there to get outs. After watching Crede field the position for the better part of a season, anybody is going to suffer by comparison, but I'm wondering how much of a downgrade Harris will be.
I'm no scout, but he was a statue at third last season. And his UZR backs that up. I don't know if he reacts poorly off the bat or what, but I have no faith in him being better than a -5/150gm defensive 3B.
Yikes, you may be very generous in your assessment, Milt. Fangraphs has Harris at -26.3/150 last year (-5.0 UZR) in 44 games at 3B. By comparison, Crede as a Twin was 23.4/150gm, and Tony Batista as a Twin (50 games) was -13.5/150. This does not bode well.
I know. That's the sad part. That's the very most optomisitic one could honestly be. And that's IF he takes a giant step forward due to knowing his position, playing there every day, etc. It's much more realistic that he is in that -10 to -15 range. Which, with his below average to average bat puts him at about 0-1 WAR.
Yay.
I'm still in favor of bringing Crede back with another incentive-laden contract.
It's always possible that the talk of Harris at third base is an attempt to get Boras to come down on Crede's price, but that doesn't especially seem like the Twins' style.
the Crede jersey shirts were in the $5 pile with the Gomezs and Bonsers. So the Pro Shop personal don't think he's coming back...
There are all sorts of SSS issues to sort through with Harris' numbers. And I think that weaker defensive players tend to benefit from consistent playing time at one position. Back in November, I pegged Harris to be about 6-7 runs per 150 games below average at third base. So definitely not a good defender, but not an embarrassing one like Batista, Delmon, etc.
With an infield of Harris-Hardy-Punto-Morneau, behind the similarly pale Baker-Slowey-Pavano-Blackburn-Perkins-Nathan-Guerrier-Crain-Neshek-Rauch-Swarzak-Manship-etc. (pretty much everyone but Liriano and Mijares), perhaps our plan is just to blind opposing hitters with our whiteness?
With the outdoor stadium, they'll be reddish from sunburn by Mid-June.
SSS be damned. He's not gonna be -23/150 bad, but the man flat out stunk out there.
So because he stunk over a few games--during a period where he was being asked to prep for multiple positions--I am supposed to assume he's going to be awful next year. And I'm sure that your observations were in no way colored by his in-season UZR that you looked at in fangraphs.
You don't have to believe it. But when I saw a man who was awful in the field, and the defensive numbers said he was awful in the field, I don't have to wait for him to log more innings so that the numbers are a sufficient sample size in order to say he isn't good in the field.
Milt on Bayesian Tilt.
Surprise! I failed the Probability exam. I probably should have studied.
maybe your priors were such that you rationally concluded that studying wouldn't matter much.
You took your chances...
I'm with ubelmann here. In Tampa Bay, Harris was a 2B/SS who occasionally made a token appearance at 3B. Since coming to the Twins, he's been treated more like a utility infielder, still playing middle infield quite a bit but also playing much more 3B than ever before. Yet even so, in two years he's had just 62 starts at 3B for the Twins. Enough to pose a challenging adjustment, not so much that it's fair to expect that he'd be solid or show significant improvement at the corner, already. The difficulty of adjusting to 3B while still shuttling between two other positions might even be the main reason he's regressed at the plate since leaving TB, too.
If he gets a lot better by focusing on one position, particularly a less challenging spot on the field, he'd hardly be the first. Of all aspects of the game, I think fielding is the easiest for a player to improve by repetition and work. UZR is an unreliable indicator of future performance, anyway, especially if you're looking at just one season. Base a projection for Harris on just the part-time sample at 3B from last year? I wouldn't put much stock in it.
Look, in the 2008 season, in 256.1 innings at 3B, Harris' UZR/150 was -5.9; in 319.2 innings at 2B, it was -1.8; in 464.1 innings at SS, -10.3. So he was close to average at 2B, and did about what ubes thinks he could do again at 3B; as you might expect, he was weakest at the toughest position of the three. However, in 2009, the numbers show that he got much worse at 2B and 3B, he now seems terrible there, but his UZR/150 at SS actually improved by 5.2 runs. Is there any sense in that? Or does it seem rather flukey, or even practically random?
For his career, as it was in 2008, his best position has been 2B (-6.8 UZR/150), although his rating at SS is close (-9.9); at 3B, he's been significantly worse (-19.6). But this doesn't tell me that he can't play 3rd base. I think it just shows what common sense might suggest: he's been better where he's felt more comfortable by logging the most playing time, 2600+ innings in the middle infield to 668 innings at 3rd base.
If Harris is allowed to focus on just one position this year, I think ubes' estimation of 6-7 runs below average for the season sounds reasonable, based on career performance in the middle infield. Given that he sticks at 3B and really works at it, he might even become average in the field, or a bit better, in some years.
No guarantees, of course, but if the alternative is signing the 32 year-old guy with a bad back who has made just 224 starts over the last 3 years (chronologically: 45, 95, 84), I'll support giving Harris a chance to earn the contract he's already signed with the Twins.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Harris will not impress us a bit at 3B. He won't be Batista bad, maybe, but he'll probably be at least Cuddyer bad.
I for the life of me don't remember Cuddy at 3rd at all. I know he played there, a lot, but I don't have a single impression of his defense at 3rd in my mind. I remember him at 2nd more. Just odd.
That's okay. Cuddy at third was a hallucination.
Cuddyer had some throwing problems at 3B, mainly in the early weeks of the 2005 season. I thought he actually improved as that season went along (his -7.4 UZR/150 at 3B that season was 4.1 runs better than his career mark there, 23.4 runs better than in 2004; and it also indicates that he was a better 3B in 2005 than he has been as a RF, the last two seasons or in his career), but Gardy had already made up his mind. The last couple weeks of the season, Cuddy was moved permanently to RF. Rather than give him another chance at 3B in 2006, of course TR signed Tony Batista.
The one thing I'll say about the Twins moving Cuddyer away from 3B is that he does have that hearing loss issue in his left ear, and while I don't think it's probably a big deal, it may have made him just uncomfortable enough that he was never really going to settle in there. His IF glovework has never really impressed me, so I don't consider it a huge loss to have him in the outfield.
he'll probably be at least Cuddyer bad
That's about where ubelmann is pegging him, although Cuddyer's -5.0 UZR, -7.4 UZR/150, at 3B in 2005 indicates that he was better than probably most Twins fans remember.
Ubes quoting Whitesnake. Nice.
As I recall, Tawney Kitaen could really hit lefthanders.
I don't have her splits, though.
I won't post photographic evidence, but time has not been kind to Ms. Kitaen. You could say she took a very long walk down the lonely street of dreams.
I have no such inhibitions.
It's the internet, New Guy. Just make sh!t up. ;)
PECOTA is actually also relatively high on Harris' bat, projecting a .277/.345/.415 line, which is a clear step up from his career major league numbers so far. That's something you could live with.
Tis.
With that production and a -7 glove, he'd come out to about a 1.5 WAR player.
I wonder who his comps are that it's that optomistic.