Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Five to Watch in the Majors in 2022
By Kody Duncan
Shortstop Oneil Cruz
Oneil Cruz is one of the top prospects in all of baseball and he showed it last season on every level. Cruz was traded to the Pirates from the Los Angeles Dodgers back in 2017 for left-handed pitcher, Tony Watson. It is starting to look like Neal Huntington made the right decision with this trade.
Cruz played in 62 games with the Curve to start the season. He slashed .292/.346/.536 with 15 doubles, 5 triples, and 12 homeruns. He did have a shoulder injury that had him out for almost 2 months but was activated on August 20th. The injury did not slow him down. He was called up to triple-a Indy on September 20th and put up almost unbelievable numbers there.
In just 6 games with the Indianapolis, Cruz was 11-21 at the plate with 1 double and 5 homeruns. His slash line with Indy was .524/.655/.1.286 and he also recorded 8 walks. Ben Cherington and company obviously took note of how well he was playing he decided to reward Cruz with a call up to PNC Park on October 2nd.
Cruz played in the final 2 games with the Pirates and did not disappoint. He had 9 at-bats with the big-league club recorded 3 hits. His second hit was 118.2mph off the bat which was the fastest exit velocity with the Pirates for the 2021 season. In his last at bat of the season, he launched a homerun out of PNC park. There should be no reason for him not to make the majors sometime in the 2022 season for the Pittsburgh Pirates.