Pittsburgh Pirates: Two Rookie of the Year Contenders in 2022

Oneil Cruz

Oneil Cruz has been part of the Pirate farm system since the 2017 trade deadline. Originally an international signee by the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was traded to the Bucs in the deal that sent Tony Watson to LA. Since then, he has developed into a consensus top 100 prospect.

Cruz got things started off at Double-A with Contreras last year. Like Contreras, he did very well at Altoona, posting a .292/.346/.536 line, .377 wOBA, and 136 wRC+. He showed off a fair amount of power, blasting 12 long balls in 273 plate appearances. Plus he had a .244 isolated slugging percentage. Cruz had a solid 23.4% strikeout rate, but a 7.3% walk rate. Despite a tad low walk rate, his season was still great.

Cruz was then promoted to Triple-A late into September. He only appeared in 6 games and had 29 plate appearances, but you couldn’t have asked for a better performance in a small sample size. Cruz had 11 hits 5 of which were home runs. Another was a double. He only struck out 5 times and drew 8 walks. Now small sample size sure, but how can you not be impressed by a 370 wRC+?

This got Cruz promoted to the bigs where he went 3-for-9 with a home run. One of his hits, a single, came off the bat at 118.2 MPH. That was the 7th hardest-hit ball all year. Giancarlo Stanton, Manny Machado, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Franchy Cordero, and Pete Alonso were the only other players to have a harder hit baseball come off their bat.

Cruz has a massive amount of raw power. He can leverage his large 6’7″, 210-pound frame for 80-grade raw power. Game power-wise, he’s still projected to be a 60-grade power hitter. Though based on his raw power, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if he reached 70-80 game power. FanGraphs only projects his hit tool to be a 35-grade. Now that is poor, but that’s mainly because his walk rates and strikeout rates aren’t the best. His batting average has risen from .286 in 2018, to .298 in 2019, then to .311 between the minors and majors this past year. Even if he only is a .270-.280 hitter long term, that’s more than adequate given his power output.

Long-term position is still up in the air. He’s an average to below-average defender at shortstop. But his cannon of an arm and athleticism leaves the possibility open for the Pirates to move him to the outfield if need be.

2021 was the huge boost of confidence Oneil Cruz probably needed. After coming off an offseason full of turmoil where he was originally framed as a drunk driver that caused a three-fatality car accident, Cruz is now in a position to take over regular plate appearances early into next season.

If you want to read the timeline of events relating to Oneil Cruz’s incident, we put together a timeline of events here.