How to appreciate Oneil Cruz, the most fun and unique player in MLB

Abraham Smith

Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Oneil Cruz has become a human push-alert, setting records for exit speed at the plate, speed at which a ball is thrown across the infield and sprint speed. Not to mention he’s one of the greatest positional players who can do basically anything on a baseball field – all during his rookie season.

Like I said when I ranked him No. 13 in all of baseball during my winter top 100 list, Cruz is the kind of unique talent with a scouting report that has us reconsidering what the word is unique really means.

In case you’re unfamiliar — and brace yourself if you’re new here — Cruz is a 6’7 left-handed shortstop with the rawest power in the league, in addition to top-tier speed and league-leading arm strength. It’s like someone went a little too wild using the create player feature in a video game.

Cruz’s surface numbers as a rookie are decent and offensively hover around the league average — but that makes baseball’s most entertaining player an OPS number. Let me take you on a guided tour of our game’s most delightful talents.

pure power

In the top 100, I rated Cruz’s raw power at 80 (the highest number on the scale), so expect Aaron Judge/Giancarlo Stanton/Shohei Ohtani-level exit speeds right away, albeit not as often, as the striking tool – or frequency of hitting the ball hard – is a separate skill. How did that raw skill translate to big league levels? I’ll give you the hardest-hit ball of the 2022 season:

This is actually the hardest hit ball in the StatCast era (back to 2015), narrowly beating a bevy of Stanton balls at over 120 mph.

This is not an isolated event; He did crazy things in his two-game big league debut at the end of last season. In his very first big league game, he hit a ball at 118.2 miles per hour. He did this in his second big league game, leading me to compare his arms to boom mics:

For context on how this fits into his overall offensive game, he’s now reduced his swing rate to below the big league average, so pitch selection isn’t the primary concern. He sacrifices some good pitches in favor of a more selective stance, but he still chases faster than average and still swings and misses faster than average due to his arm length and swing plane. Cruz will always come with some strikeouts, but the adjustments he makes over the next few years will be key.

Throw

I also rated Cruz’s arm strength at 80 in the Top 100 scouting reports, and I think you can see where that’s going:

I have confirmed that this is still the most heavily used infield assist of the StatCast era. I think it’s safe to assume that Cruz could literally have lightning pulsing through his arms. Some scouts who watched Cruz early in his pro career assumed that a player this tall couldn’t hit well enough to survive even in the upper minors and he should be put on the mound.

While his arm strength could certainly warrant it, it clearly isn’t.

speed

You’d think the lanky 6-7 player wouldn’t be the fastest – or even fast at all – because it would take him so long to hit top speed. Long-limbed players are often goofy and fast only because of big strides, and baseball isn’t really conducive to running in a straight line for long periods of time.

On the contrary!

While his start-to-first pace is actually average to slightly better, his top speed (30.1 feet per second) in baseball is fourth among those in 80+ contests.

Of those three players ahead of him, the tallest is Bobby Witt Jr. at 6-1, 200 pounds, which makes me think we need to at least try to find some players closer to Cruz’s height. Working down the list to find just a few players who are over 230 pounds or at least 6-3, we find Julio Rodriguez (7th, 29.7 ft/sec), Mike Trout (12. , 29.4), Bryson Stott (30th, 29.0), Ohtani (65th, 28.3) and Cody Bellinger (89th, 28.1). For reference, Stanton is eighth penultimate at 24.2 ft/sec, while Judge is about average at 27.3.

Again, there’s no real size comparison for Cruz, but he’s significantly faster than anyone with even remotely similar physical characteristics. When judging speed by timing, which includes starting from a still position, this tool doesn’t rank as an 80 as does its power and arm strength. Nonetheless, StatCast helps us see that he’s likely an 80 at top speed, which might be the most incredible number yet.

catch

The Pirates hope Cruz grows to average defensive ability at shortstops, and he’s been a little below metrics this year — but still very close to average. So that you understand that his skills are not only in explosive movements, but also manifest in fluid movements, take a look at this game in the hole:

Cruz has shown many examples of almost exactly this play in the minors and majors, so he’s clearly figured out how to best use his length and arm strength on balls hit to his right. I remember a scout who first saw Cruz play shortstop at A-Ball and told me he looked like an octopus picking it all up before the scout’s brain could process how it happened. It reminded me of the GIF of an octopus laying bricks.

There are now countless examples of scouts underestimating how good a big minor league shortstop can be defensively in the big leagues (Carlos Correa and Corey Seager spring to mind), where the key variable behind the greatest successes is athleticism.

I can’t think of a better athlete than Oneil Cruz so I’m betting on his success.

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