All season long, I’ve been on Josh Harrison. No, not in the bandwagon way, or the way that many Pittsburgh fans have been. I’ve been consistent in my thoughts that he was going to fall back to earth. In fact, I told people HERE that they should enjoy Harrison’s play while they could, because it wouldn’t stay.
I heard about it from people. Trust me, I have. To this day — which is partially the reason for this column — I engage in heavily-debated discussions about Harrison’s sustainability and his actually talents. I get text messages asking if he’s the team MVP, or if he should be in discussion for the league MVP. I have people send me smiley face texts that just say “Harrison” after it.
But you know what, sometimes it’s OK to be wrong.
And folks, in this particular case, I’ve been dead wrong all year.
I constantly went with the notion that Harrison has been hot for six weeks before the All-Star break, and that’s the reason his numbers are what they are. I’ve told colleagues here and many of you on Twitter, Facebook, etc. to talk to me in October to see what he’s doing. Guess what? It’s not even September and I’m OK with saying that I was wrong.
In fact, it happens often. I had the Texas Rangers winning the World Series, I consider Mike Glennon a top-15 quarterback, I think that Kris Letang is a great defender and my favorite player of all time is Pokey Reese. As a writer and a fan, you want to be right. But you have to admit when you are in the wrong. And honestly, it’s fun to look back and realize how wrong you were.
With Harrison, though, I wouldn’t say it is fun. In fact, it’s frustrating. Looking at his peripherals and career-long numbers, this season just doesn’t make sense. Fellow PSN writer Gar Bercury has been one of the biggest Harrison supporters all year, and he continually brings up the point that the sample size we had prior to this year was small. Gar also says that perhaps Harrison is just enjoying a breakout year. Both fair points, but we’ve seen this so many times before.
Look at what Alex Presley did when he came up. The Pirates rewarded Jose Tabata with a big contract. People wanted Michael McKenry to start 162 games during his tenure as a Pirate. Fans fall in love with the new toy, and this year, the toy was Harrison. Harrison did the same thing during the past two years on a much smaller scale, which was another reason I thought he would go back to his old ways.
For 2014, Josh, you just may be the team MVP, and while you won’t win the MVP of the league, you are the MVP of Pittsburgh. In a weird, unpredictable season, the only reason that the Pirates are where they are right now is because of Harrison’s play on defense and offense. Harrison’s the type of player that any contending team would love to have on their roster. He’s a role player that is enjoying one hell of a season, and he is, without a doubt, one of — if not the — best story in baseball.
And if me being wrong means that Harrison continues to play this way, I’ll gladly accept it.
