Pirates might regret offseason decision after Oneil Cruz meltdown

When the Pittsburgh Pirates lost to the New York Mets on Opening Day, they exposed a roster flaw that’s been quietly staring everyone in the face since the moment they handed $12 million to Marcell Ozuna.

And Oneil Cruz made sure it couldn’t be ignored anymore.

For about five minutes Thursday, everything looked exactly how the Pirates drew it up. Cruz set the tone with a mature leadoff at-bat. Brandon Lowe delivered instant payoff with a two-run homer. The offense looked deeper, more professional — like a team that finally understood the assignment.

Then Cruz took the field, and the entire roster construction conversation came crashing down with him.

Cruz isn’t just struggling defensively — he’s actively compromising games. Not in a “he’ll figure it out” way. In a “this is costing your ace outs and your team wins” way.

Paul Skenes recorded two outs. Two. That’s not just on Cruz, but it’s impossible to ignore how quickly things unraveled once the ball started finding him. Bad reads. Hesitation. Routes that looked more like guesses than instincts. It turned a manageable inning into a spiral, and suddenly your generational arm is walking off the mound before the first inning even ends.

This is where the offseason decision-making comes into focus. Because the Pirates had a solution sitting right in front of them.

It’s called designated hitter.

Cruz’s athleticism, bat speed, and raw power make him a perfect candidate to impact games without the defensive volatility. You don’t lose his upside — you protect it. You let him focus on being a game-breaking offensive force instead of asking him to survive in center field on national television.

Instead, the Pirates spent $12 million to fill that spot with Ozuna. And that’s where this starts to look like a misread of their own roster.

Questions about Marcell Ozuna's fit on Pirates roster grow louder after Oneil Cruz Opening Day disaster

Bringing Ozuna into the fold blocked flexibility. Because now you’re trying to juggle Ryan O’Hearn (who can actually play a competent first base), a rotating mix of bats like Spencer Horwitz and Brandon Lowe cycling through DH days… all while the one player who most clearly needs that role is stuck learning defense in real time.

You don’t spend $12 million on a luxury DH when your roster is already screaming for defensive solutions. Especially not when that decision forces you to keep a high-variance defender in a premium position behind your most important pitcher. That’s how you get what happened Thursday.

And here’s the part that should worry the Pirates even more: this isn’t new. Cruz’s defensive inconsistencies didn’t suddenly appear on Opening Day. They’ve been part of the profile. The risk was always there. The difference now is the stakes are higher — and the roster is less equipped to absorb it. Because they chose to allocate resources elsewhere.

Ozuna might hit. He might even mash enough to justify his contract in a vacuum. But roster construction doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s about fit. It’s about maximizing the strengths of the players you already have.

Right now, the Pirates aren’t doing that. They’re forcing pieces into places they don’t belong, while the obvious solution sits blocked by a signing that never quite made sense to begin with.

Opening Day didn’t create this problem, but it put it on full display.