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Love that Oneil Cruz ended the year with the Pirates. Maybe this is a banana in the ol’ tailpipe. Or rather a banana in the booty hole. Booty as in treasure stolen by Pirates and put in a “hole” in a lower deck–Ya know what? No need to explain, everyone says booty hole with only one thing in mind. A pirate ship’s lower deck for treasure, where the peg boys hang out. So, maybe this banana in the booty hole will come back to haunt me like a ghost ship that has lots of booties with bananas, but my expectations have been raised by him being promoted in the final weekend of last season, whether that’s good or not, we shall see. Break camp, not wind when the booty hole and bananas are on the line, as I always say. Any hoo! Here’s a fun one to watch:
ONEIL CRUZ JUST HIT HIS FIRST MAJOR LEAGUE HOME RUN!!! pic.twitter.com/PIMMswXDYl
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) October 3, 2021
Oneil Cruz had no business hitting that ball out. What’s that, a flip of the wrist in one of baseball’s worst parks? He’s a shortstop with 80-grade power? Oh…*climbs up a stack of phone books until one reaches the moon*…kay. So, what can we expect from Oneil Cruz for 2021 fantasy baseball?
Oh, by the by, Oneil Cruz is the tallest shortstop in major league history at six-seven. His first major league hit was 118.2 MPH. Only seven players hit the ball that hard in 2021, and only 20 since 2015. Franchy Coredro and Chris Gittens (who and huh?) also had 118 MPH hits, so it’s not everything, but it’s something. You can’t hit a ball hard unless you’re a special specimen of yum or get super lucky. Oneil Cruz wasn’t lucky. He’s a SSoY (special specimen of yum). How SSoY is he? As far as the fifteen hours of clips I just watched, he’s as SSoY as SSoY gets. The SSoYiest. In Double and Triple-A this year, he went 17/19/.295 with a 22% strikeout rate. (I rounded on .295 and 22% because I didn’t feel like doing the math, you’ll get over your outrage.)
Here’s what Prospect Itch said about him, “He’s a little taller than 6’6” (uh, Itch, that’s 6’7″, bro) yet dynamic enough athletically to play shortstop and go to the opposite field with a natural-looking flick of the wrists that makes him much harder to strike out than someone so big can be. His regular swings are often beautiful and tremendous in the potential for destroying baseballs, like I’d like to destroy Grey.” Not cool, man! That home run of Cruz really says so much, which is why I included it. That is him, he is that. I have to think he’s got massive holes in his swing, because he’s 6’6″+1″. Has to, right? “His arms are long, but his holes are massive.” — Grey, as a baseball coach. The hit tool is apparently a 35-grade so that’s really bad, and why he might really have those holes, and not just a booty hole. If the exit velo can stay high enough with the non-zero speed, he might be able to avoid the projected .230 bating average by some. Also, I think he could bottom out and hit even lower. There’s more risk here than there was with Julio Rodriguez or Bobby Witt Jr., my last two fantasy baseball rookies. Still, there’s less risk with a promotion and everything is pretty sexy. For 2022, I’ll give Oneil Cruz projections of 68/23/78/.242/10 in 567 ABs with a chance for more, especially on the power, and a chance for less, especially on average.
