Josh Harrison Takes Grounders At Shortstop

The only real position battle going on in camp this year for the Pirates is the backup infield spots. The team has a solid starting shortstop in Clint Barmes, but there isn't an obvious name that is going to be in Pittsburgh backing him up.

Sadly enough, one of the Pirates next best options is Chase d'Arnaud. The kid spent some time at the big league level last year and looked awful. All signs point to the Pirates keeping him in AAA at the beginning of the season so he can continue to work and get everyday playing time. d'Arnaud is still young, and to have him in a bench role in 2012 certainly wouldn't help his development. There is little to no chance Chase makes the team out of spring training.

That leaves a few names like Anderson Hernandez, Yamaico Navarro, and Josh Harrison. None of those guys are big league caliber players, but sadly enough one of them is going to have to be our backup shortstop. Everybody's favorite for that job is Harrison.

But wait, something you're forgetting - Josh Harrison doesn't play shortstop... or does he?

No, he doesn't. He has started 359 baseball games in his career, and just one of them has been at shortstop. That game was last year in Indianapolis. He made an error.

That said, here's a picture of Harrison taking groundballs at shortstop Sunday in Bradenton, compliments of RumBunter.

That's interesting to me. I understand you don't have to be a defensive wizard to fill the role of a bench shortstop, but a guy that's played just one game in his career there? I don't know about that.

Who knows, maybe the Pirates think Harrison can play shortstop well enough to make the team as the primary backup there. If that's true, I'm all for it. I really don't want to see Anderson Hernandez on this team, and I don't know about Yamaico Navarro yet. I would like to see Navarro get a bunch of at-bats early on in the season, and he can only get them in the minor leagues, so I might lean towards making him the starting second or third basemen there at season's beginning just to see what he can do with the stick. Navarro is a guy that still has some room to grow and turn into a possible big league starter, you can't say that for Harrison. He's bound to be a bench depth guy that can help you in different ways. I want d'Arnaud and Navarro to get starts at the beginning of the season.

We'll see what the Pirates do with Harrison when games start this coming weekend. Chances are they'll try him at shortstop and hope he's good enough to take to Pittsburgh come April, but with that one career start under his belt, I'm not betting on it.