Oneil Cruz is a participant of extremes. The 6-foot-7 shortstop — the tallest man ever to play the place often — doesn’t simply have unbelievable bat pace and energy, he can lay declare to the hardest-hit ball of the Statcast period, and he as soon as held the file for the toughest throw by an infielder as effectively. However for as loud as his contact is, the frequency with which he makes it has been a difficulty, as he’s notably susceptible to chasing pitches outdoors the zone. Defensive metrics don’t love him both. But he’s the sort of participant you possibly can’t take your eyes off, as a result of when all of it comes collectively, it’s a sight to behold — and steadily, it’s been coming collectively extra steadily.
Living proof: Final week discovered Cruz in a protracted funk, hitting simply .151/.224/.283 in his earlier 58 plate appearances relationship again to Could 15 whereas hanging out 23 occasions (39.6%) in that span. After going 0-for-4 in final Tuesday’s sequence opener in opposition to the Dodgers, he collected a pair of hits the following evening, together with this three-run homer off Evan Phillips:
That’s a 462-footer into the Allegheny River, the longest homer of Cruz’s main league profession by 25 toes, and the third splash hit of his profession; he additionally had ones on September 6, 2022 and Could 3 of this season. The 117.7-mph exit velocity on his shot off Phillips made it his hardest-hit dwelling run to this point by 0.2 mph, surpassing an August 28, 2022 dinger in Milwaukee. For each distance and exit velocity, he’s up there with the large boys; the homer off Phillips is the majors’ seventh-longest this yr behind three from Aaron Decide (a 473-footer from Could 9 being the longest) and ones by Mike Trout, Bobby Witt Jr. and Shohei Ohtani. Cruz’s homer is the fourth-fastest in exit velocity behind two by Giancarlo Stanton (a 119.9-mph shot from Could 8 being the quickest) and one by Ohtani. He’s proper there in taste nation in relation to a few of the brand new bat monitoring metrics, second solely to Stanton in common bat pace (78.0 mph) and fast-swing price (74.6%); he’s under common by way of his squared-up price (23.1%) — that’s the speed at which he obtains no less than 80% of the utmost exit velocity for that swing — however a decent fifteenth in blast price (16.2%), the speed at which he squares up balls on quick swings.
Cruz’s homer in opposition to the Dodgers was his eighth of the yr, and his first since Could 12. The subsequent day in opposition to the Twins, he hit a towering 422-footer, 114.4 mph off the bat. Opposite to whoever known as this one, it didn’t go into the Allegheny, as an alternative bouncing across the higher deck of PNC Park:
As for these aforementioned extremes, on July 14, 2022, in simply the twenty fifth sport of his main league profession, Cruz recorded the quickest throw by an infielder to that time, a 97.8-mph bullet on a groundout. That file fell by the wayside by the hands of Elly De La Cruz final yr, with Masyn Winn’s relay throw from Could 6 of this yr dialing the file as much as 101.2 mph, although not like Cruz and De La Cruz, he didn’t really make an help. As for the bat, on August 24, 2022, Cruz recorded what nonetheless stands as the hardest-hit ball of the Statcast period, a 122.4-mph single off the fitting discipline wall at PNC Park that surpassed a 122.2-mph single by Stanton from October 1, 2017. On Could 21 of this yr in opposition to Giants, Cruz collected the 2 hardest-hit balls of the season, first a 120.4-mph single within the first inning after which a 121.5-mph double within the ninth; within the third, he additionally smoked a 116.3-mph double, making him the primary participant ever to file three batted balls of no less than 115 mph in a single sport, in addition to the primary with two of no less than 120 mph:
That three-hit sport occurred amid the aforementioned stoop; Cruz had collected one hit in his earlier 4 video games and would add simply two hits over his subsequent six.
By the feasts and famines, Cruz is now hitting .243/.298/.429 for a 102 wRC+, and .239/.301/.441 (105 wRC+) by 158 main league video games general, with 28 homers, 18 steals and a couple of.9 WAR in 655 PA; his 220 strikeouts could be three shy of Mark Reynolds‘ single-season file if he’d finished them multi functional yr. The majority of his time within the majors got here in 2022 when he performed 87 video games and launched 17 homers with a 105 wRC+ and 1.4 WAR. His numbers this yr represent respectable manufacturing for a 25-year-old shortstop, however have been in need of star caliber, and star caliber is the expectation for a participant who positioned eighth on our High 100 Prospects checklist two years in the past for pairing 80-grade uncooked energy with an 80-grade arm and plus pace. Then once more, some slack is so as provided that Cruz was restricted to only 9 video games final season after fracturing his left fibula in a house plate collision on April 9. Following surgical procedure to stabilize the bone and restore the syndesmosis (the fibrous joint held collectively by ligaments), he was anticipated to overlook 4 months, however he didn’t heal shortly sufficient to begin a rehab task and return to the majors.
Beneath these circumstances, some rust could possibly be anticipated. Cruz stumbled out of the gate, however since Could 1 — proper round midway by the pattern — he’s been far more productive:
Oneil Cruz Splits
| Cut up | PA | HR | BB% | Ok% | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| By April 30 | 121 | 3 | 6.6% | 37.2% | .239 | .289 | .345 | 79 |
| Since Could 1 | 124 | 6 | 8.1% | 29.8% | .248 | .306 | .513 | 125 |
Pirates common supervisor Ben Cherington lately acknowledged the expectation that Cruz might battle within the early going, saying, “I believe I’ve already stated or would have stated that if the primary six to eight weeks have been just a little up-and-down for him, that wouldn’t have shocked me coming off of mainly a missed yr and a serious damage.” Cherington has publicly confused that the workforce would “simply let him play” by his ups and downs whereas working behind the scenes to assist him enhance.
In late April, Cruz spoke of battling to regain his confidence after final yr’s absence, and as of early Could, his surgically repaired ankle wasn’t but again to 100%. Pirates hitting coaches Andy Haines and Christian Marrero have launched some tweaks to his swing as a way to assist enhance his path to the ball. He’s holding his palms larger, and his stance is extra closed off, together with his legs barely nearer collectively, his physique barely extra upright. There’s a side-by-side GIF right here displaying the adjustments.
These changes appear to be working, as one of the vital encouraging features of the above break up is the decline in Cruz’s strikeout price. He struck out a hefty 34.9% of the time as a rookie and was even larger in March and April, however he lowered that to 30.9% in Could and is all the way down to 26.7% by seven video games in June. The place he walked simply as soon as for each 5.6 strikeouts in April, he’s all the way down to as soon as for each 3.7 strikeouts since.
The world the place we actually see Cruz’s enchancment — each relative to 2022 and to the early a part of the season — is in his batted ball stats:
Oneil Cruz Statcast Profile
| Season | BBE | EV | LA | Barrel% | HardHit% | AVG | xBA | SLG | xSLG | wOBA | xwOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 206 | 91.9 | 8.3 | 15.5% | 45.6% | .233 | .219 | .450 | .406 | .320 | .301 |
| 2024-Mar/Apr | 68 | 92.5 | 8.1 | 7.4% | 50.0% | .239 | .225 | .345 | .345 | .280 | .270 |
| 2024-Could/June | 77 | 98.0 | 11.7 | 28.6% | 57.1% | .248 | .216 | .523 | .571 | .348 | .374 |
| 2024 | 145 | 95.4 | 10.0 | 18.6% | 53.8% | .243 | .252 | .435 | .450 | .314 | .322 |
Inside that span, Cruz’s common exit velocity trails solely Decide’s 99.2 mph and likewise for his barrel price, which has practically quadrupled since March/April; his hard-hit price is seventh throughout the identical timeframe. As you would possibly surmise given the will increase in common launch angle and anticipated slugging proportion, he’s hitting the ball within the air extra usually these days; his general 49.7% groundball price displays a drop from 57.4% by April to 42.9% from Could 1 onward, together with his general 1.53 groundball-to-fly ball ratio falling from 1.95 to 1.22 utilizing those self same cutoffs.
Although he made a degree of displaying that he might go the opposite approach early within the yr, Cruz’s present 41.4% pull price isn’t far under his 43.7% from 2022. As with the info above, we’ve seen a dramatic course correction because the early going, with a 25% pull price from March and April rising to a 55.8% pull price since. He pulled only one fly ball earlier than Could 1, however has 11 since, with 5 of them going for homers.
The large situation for Cruz is chasing pitches out of the strike zone. Whereas the story so far would counsel that these days he’s dramatically lower down on the chases and is making extra contact within the zone, that’s really not the case, no less than if we’re sticking to the Could 1 cutoff:
Oneil Cruz Plate Self-discipline Splits
| Cut up | O-Sw% | Z-Sw% | Sw% | O-Con% | Z-Con% | Con% | SwStr% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 30.7% | 51.9% | 40.5% | 42.7% | 82.3% | 66.2% | 13.70% |
| 2024-Mar/Apr | 35.4% | 56.2% | 45.3% | 57.1% | 77.1% | 68.9% | 14.0% |
| 2024-Could/June | 34.5% | 62.2% | 47.9% | 47.7% | 75.7% | 65.3% | 16.3% |
| 2024 | 35.0% | 59.2% | 46.4% | 52.5% | 76.3% | 67.0% | 15.2% |
Quite the opposite, Cruz is chasing extra usually than in 2022, and solely about one proportion level much less usually since Could 1 than earlier than that date. He’s swinging at extra pitches within the zone these days… however making much less frequent contact, each in and outdoors the zone (although nonetheless greater than in 2022). His swinging strike price has gone up, not down.
However that’s only one admittedly arbitrary level from which we will measure, a handy one given the calendar and the same pattern sizes on both facet. Once we look at Cruz’s rolling chase price, we will see that he’s gone by intervals when he was particularly chase-prone, usually coinciding with drops in manufacturing:
That set of pink spikes close to the center coincides with early Could; on a 10-game foundation, he reached most chase price on Could 8, and whereas he’s largely reined in that tendency since then, he regressed on that rating proper on the finish of the month.
If it’s not fairly what we anticipated, it’s no less than been offset to a point by a greater two-strike method; by April, Cruz was hitting .176/.228/.189 (21 wRC+) whereas hanging out 57% of the time with two strikes, however he’s discovered some energy (.135/.198/.284, 34 wRC+) since then whereas trimming his strikeout price in such conditions to 45.7%. This counts as progress, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a whole lot of chasing pitches with little success. Cruz is chasing offspeed pitches (changeups and splitters) 48% of the time and breaking pitches (curves, knuckle curves, sliders, slurves, and sweepers) 34% of the time; he’s 2-for-30 with 17 strikeouts in plate appearances that finish with him chasing a breaking ball.
Cruz’s bat-tracking splits aren’t as dramatic as these of his batted ball stats; the large takeaways I’ll provide are that he’s elevated his common bat pace (from 77.5 mph to 78.3%), his quick swing price has elevated by 5 factors (from 71.7% to 76.7%, and his blast price has improved a contact (from 15% to 17%).
On the defensive facet, the metrics are a combined bag, which shouldn’t be too shocking given the samples (678 innings in 2022, 502 this yr). Statcast faults Cruz for his lateral vary, however he’s improved from -6 to -1 by FRV; DRS and UZR provide a break up choice, with decline within the former (from 1 to -4) and slight enchancment within the latter (-7.5 to -3.6). His long-term future might not be at shortstop, nevertheless it is sensible for the Pirates to maintain him there and hope for enchancment.
In the event you’re solely wanting on the top-line numbers, it’s simple to overlook Cruz’s positive aspects relative to 2022. And whereas it’s OK to be cautious of any arbitrary endpoint splits, for probably the most half those I’ve proven illustrate that he’s making some really awe-inspiring contact and is usually headed in the fitting route, in the direction of enchancment. Together with Jared Jones, Paul Skenes, and Nick Gonzales, he’s made the Pirates a extra compelling and aggressive workforce; at 32-34, they’re second within the NL Central by 6.5 video games and in a digital tie with the Giants for the third Wild Card spot, with 4 different groups simply half a sport behind them. Cruz’s progress solely makes the race that rather more price watching.
