Pirates Prospects Daily: The Next Step For Oneil Cruz

Everything Oneil Cruz does is to the extreme.

He hits the ball harder than anyone else while in the batter’s box. He puts up elite speed on the base paths, thanks to his towering 6’7” frame, and to put the cherry on the top, had the hardest throw from the infield last year as well.

Cruz is a walking human highlight reel, capable of bringing us out of our seats at any point in the game. The next step from him won’t require hitting a baseball in the river, or making a throw from deep in the hole that only he could possibly reach.

The next step will come from the quiet things.

That will come from making the easy play at short, without bobbling it or taking that extra second to corral it — not relying on the cannon arm to make a routing out.

It will come from taking a little off a swing to make sure he cuts his over 50% whiff rate on both breaking balls and offspeed pitches, even if that means he ‘only’ hits the ball 100 mph off the bat.

I’m not sure what the longest home run to left field is at PNC Park, but something tells me with a flick of the wrist, Cruz can put pressure on that record by showing a bit patience and waiting on some pitches a little longer to increase his odds of making more consistent contact.

Cruz is as rare as they come, where he has the skill set to literally do anything that he wants to while he’s on the baseball field. While he is already one of the most exciting players to watch, it will be him progressing with the smaller things that will take him to the next level of super stardom.

Making Contact The Biggest Focus

Regardless of the pitch, whenever Cruz made contact with something, he did so with a unique violence we rarely see from a player. Nearly half of his batted balls qualified as ‘hard hit’, and had an average exit velocity of 91.9 – over three mph higher than what major league average is.

We know what Cruz can do when he makes contact. It’s the amount of times he missed that will be the biggest opportunity of improvement.

	% Faced	XBH	AVG	xwOBA	Whiff%
Fastballs	47.2%	21	.285	.367	15.8%
Breaking	38.5%	5	.168	.204	55.5%
Offspeed	14.4%	8	.222	.342	52.3%

*Information from Baseball Savant

Cruz came as advertised against fastballs in 2022, and he punished hitters who threw him the pitch nearly 50% of the time. Over 60% of his extra-base hits came against the fastball, and his whiff rate (15.8%) and strikeout rate (20.9%) were way above his overall averages.

He even found a little success against offspeed pitches, picking up more extra-base hits against them than he had versus breaking balls — in half the plate appearances.

There were still swing and miss issues, but there was probably enough there to keep pitchers away from throwing more against him.

Facing breaking pitches was another story, as not only did he whiff on over half of his swings, he also posted a 52.7% strikeout rate. How far he can improve on that — he is still just 24-years-old — will go a long way in stabilizing a floor for his nearly limitless upside.

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