Oneil Cruz Says No to contract extension with the Pittsburgh Pirates next season

Oneil Cruz Keeps Eliminating Reasons to Think He Won’t Succeed

Oneil Cruz has been slow walked back into action this Spring, that much is clear, but he’s also made the most of his opportunities and I’d contend, removed almost all doubt he’s healthy, strong, and more important, ready to face MLB pitching.

When we talk about Oneil, let’s start by being brutally honest, this is a guy who’s only had 410 Major League plate appearances, it’s hard to consider him a finished product, and after missing the vast majority of an MLB season, anyone who has question marks about how he’ll perform is completely justified. Can he run? Can he field? Will he have to rest a lot? Man it’s been a long time since he faced live pitching, how’s this gonna look? All valid, all real.

All that being said, when a guy is showing you he has answers to some of those questions, you should be ready to accept those answers.

I’d like to start out here by talking a little about his projections. I’ll admit here, I’m at least a little doing this to show how very much so these projections are barely worth the electronic paper they’re printed on. Players with no MLB track record or very little are going to be off. Guys who had seasons cut short by injury, well, they’re very unforgiving.

Baseball Reference has him getting 256 PAs, with only 11 homers and a .248 Average.

Zips has him at 475 PAs, with 19 HR and a .245 average. STEAMER 550 PAs, 23 HR and a .251 average.

Reference seems to assume he won’t be healthy. Zips he’ll need a lot of rest. And STEAMER suspects he’ll play a lot but be no better than he was as a rookie, maybe even a step back.

They’re all over the map, almost entirely based on his meager track record and it’s really up to you to believe any of them are going to be close to accurate.

I’m just here checking boxes.

Cruz has shown he can run. He’s shown he can field, even if he still has some of his inexplicable snafus from time to time. And lastly, man, he can hit. His eye looks good so far at the dish, he’s largely spitting on stuff that plagued him in 2022, and to be completely fair, in his admittedly very short sample of 2023 he showed better selection at the dish, but nobody could know if it was safe to assume he’d come back looking like he’d done this recently. To his credit, he has.

Under no circumstances am I claiming this kid isn’t going to hit a roadblock or speed bump, but he looks a whole lot like the kid who was ready to dominate for a season entering 2023.

This team looks like they have a better offensive unit than what they entered 2023 with and that in and of itself should help Oneil. Not being the one guy you have to keep from beating you could really jump start him and give the entire team a boost.

The biggest question remaining to me is can he stick at short stop. I know he’s going to start there, but that question simply has to be answered this year, whether that be negatively or affirmatively. Either way, this is either the beginning of Cruz’ journey to being the everyday SS for a few years or the beginning of finding a place for him to play.

Thing is, he doesn’t have to be perfect, he just needs to be good. If he isn’t, we could start to see the team experiment and experimenting doesn’t pair well with winning.

Every time he steps in the box, he could change the game and every time he does, he’ll take another step closer to being an answer as opposed to a book of questions.

Spring training numbers are over estimated, overblown and often over sold, but when the score is really more about checking boxes, it’s easy to see Cruz is ticking them one by one.

It’s not as simple as saying this team goes as Cruz goes, but he sure could mask a whole lot of issues if he’s even 75% of what we hope.