Pittsburgh Pirates: Projecting the Team’s 2023 Line Up
By Noah Wright
Right Field: Oneil Cruz
Opening Day Age: 23
The Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Oneil Cruz in the trade that sent Tony Watson to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and it was one of the last really good trades former general manager Neal Huntington made during his Pirates’ tenure. Currently, Cruz is the Pirates’ best shortstop prospect, and the 5th best shortstop prospect in all of baseball. But with Peguero, Newman, Tucker, and Bae with Gonzales who both have experience at short, all potential long term options at short, Cruz is going to have to find a new defensive home. That new home is likely going to be right field.
Cruz has an outstanding arm that would fit in right field. Originally a third base prospect with LA, Cruz has always been praised for the power that he can generate. His arm has a current and future grade of 80, which is the best possible grade on the 20-80 scale all prospect grades are based on.
Power wise, his 6’7, 210 frame gives him a lot of leverage. Cruz has a 60 future game power grade, but an extremely impressive 80 future raw power grade. He’s put his power on display through the minors. In 2018, Cruz hit .288/.343/.488 with a 134 wRC+ through 443 plate appearances at the Low-A level. Cruz crushed 14 long balls, and had a .201 isolated slugging percentage.
Last year, Cruz was demolishing the ball at High-A hitting .301/.345/.515 with a 154 wRC+ through 145 plate appearances. Not only did Cruz get his slugging percentage above .500, but his ISO of .213 was the highest of his career.
While Cruz didn’t hit for much power when he was moved to Double-A, he was coming off a wrist injury when he was promoted, but showed a good amount of improvement with plate discipline. After walking just 5.5% of the time before his promotion, he was drawing a walk 11% of the time during his short Altoona stint. Currently, he ranks as the 32nd best prospect in baseball, and still climbing the list.
Currently, Cruz is an average to below average shortstop, but shortstops are usually the most athletic players on the field. He would probably be a pretty solid defensive right fielder. Plus he isn’t slow either. He has stolen 41 bases throughout his 336 game minor league career.