Josh Harrison has been named the National League Player of the Month for the month of August. Harrison hit for a .347/.374/.602 line during the month, giving him the fifth best average in the league, and the best slugging percentage. Harrison also ranked second in OPS at .976, falling only behind Giancarlo Stanton’s .998 OPS.
Harrison is having a great season, and he has been on fire for the second half. His second half line is a .335/.366/.597 line in 187 plate appearances. Once again, that’s the fifth best average, and the second best slugging percentage in the league during that time. The second half has helped propel Harrison to the point where he leads the NL in batting average on the season, with a .313 average.
This is the second time this season that a Pirates player has been named the Player of the Month in the National League. Andrew McCutchen received the honor in June.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
Congrats to Josh. This helps make him more expensive to sign long term, but I hope that the Pirates are willing to do it.
Who gives a crap about signing long term? A year ago we would have figured him as an eventual nontender candidate once he hit about the second year of arbitration. If he is too expensive when the time comes, that means he has been for real, and is helping us win games amd get to the playoffs. The only players anyone wants to sign long term are the players who would be too expensive….. In arbitration, at least for the first and usually second year, the players are almost never overpaid, so who cares? We have him for about another 3+ years, if those 3 years are even .75 of this year, then we have amazingly lucked out