Cruz control: Pirates weigh what to do on defense with error-prone shortstop Oneil Cruz

Oneil Cruz already has surpassed every statistical mark from his rookie season and is one shy of tying the franchise record for home runs by a shortstop, set 91 years ago by Hall of Famer Arky Vaughan.

Although Cruz leads the Pittsburgh Pirates with 27 doubles and ranks among the team’s top three in every offensive category this season, those feats are often overshadowed by the gaffes in his game.

Where Cruz missed the majority of last season after undergoing surgery to repair his fractured his left ankle, the crutch he’s carrying this year has been his propensity for committing errors on defense.

The 6-foot-7, 230-pound Cruz — the tallest player ever at his position in major league history — has 24 errors this season. That ranks as the second-most in MLB, behind Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz (26). What’s worse, Cruz has committed half of his errors since July 21.

“Errors are going to happen. Some of them, I guess, I earn it; some of them, it’s part of the game,” Cruz told TribLive through translator Stephen Morales, a Pirates coach. “There’s definitely things to improve, and I’m going to continue to work on it.”

The frequency of the errors has become a glaring issue, to the point that general manager Ben Cherington has addressed the topic on his weekly radio show on Pirates flagship 93.7 The Fan the past two Sundays.

“He knows and we know that he is capable of more defensively in order for the Pirates to win at the level we want to,” Cherington said Aug. 11. “We need a more steady performance defensively at short. He knows that. We know that. He’s so talented, he’s working so hard that we’re going to continue to challenge him. We believe in him. We believe in what he’s capable of doing.”

‘That’s a unique thing’

The Pirates have long sacrificed offense for a good glove at shortstop, which explains why Vaughan’s 19 home runs in 152 games in 1933 has stood so long as the franchise record at the position.

With 18 homers in 110 games, Cruz will tie Vaughan’s mark with his next round-tripper and needs two to break it. By comparison, Cruz’s predecessor, Kevin Newman, was a Gold Glove finalist in 2021 but hit 20 total home runs in 431 games over five seasons with the Pirates.

Pirates first baseman Rowdy Tellez is convinced that Cruz is only starting to tap into his talent, given the power potential he showed with 17 home runs and 54 RBIs in 87 games — a 32-homer, 101-RBI pace — as a rookie in 2022.

“I firmly believe he’s going to be a top-five shortstop in baseball,” Tellez said. “He’s a freak of nature. I think he’s going to be unbelievable for a long time. I think some people would trade a couple errors for a 30-homer guy any day of the week.”

Aside from his team-best 27 doubles and 13 stolen bases, Cruz ranks right behind All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds among Pirates leaders in almost every offensive category. Cruz is batting .261/.317/.466 with 61 RBIs and a 116 OPS+ while starting 105 games at shortstop.

“It feels good, especially after missing the whole year last year with the injury,” Cruz said. “You always can get better but I think I’m in a good spot right now. I’ve accomplished a lot.”

His biggest accomplishment has been breaking Statcast records, with his most impressive coming when he hit two balls at an exit velocity that exceeded 120 mph on May 21 against the San Francisco Giants at PNC Park. After Cruz flashed his impressive bat speed and power with a 120.4-mph single in the first inning and a 116.3-mph double in the third, he turned on Camilo Doval’s 100-mph cutter for a game-tying double that was the hardest-hit ball ever recorded, at 121.5 mph.

Per Statcast, Cruz has the fastest bat speed (78.3 mph) in baseball, ranks in the 99th percentile in average exit velocity (95 mph) and in the top four percent in both barrel percentage (17.5%) and hard-hit rate (53.4%).

That Cruz also ranks in the bottom four in whiff rate (34%) and strikeout rate (32.2%) only causes more frustration for a fan base that has waited years for his arrival, especially after he shared his goal of joining the 40-40 club for homers and steals before the 2023 season. Now, Cruz said his focus has shifted to staying healthy and playing every day.

“We have felt that what’s best for Oneil Cruz and what’s best for the Pirates were the same thing: Play short,” Cherington said Sunday. “Because if he can play at a high level and produce offensively at the level we think he’s capable of … that’s a unique thing. Not many teams have a shortstop that can do those things offensively. It’s to our benefit and to Oneil Cruz’s benefit to give it every chance to find out.”

‘He missed a crucial year’

The Pirates have gone to great lengths to note how little time the 25-year-old Cruz has played in the majors. He spent the pandemic-shortened 2020 season at the alternate training site in Altoona, made his major league debut and played two games in September 2021, then played 87 games in 2022 and only nine last season.

Cherington cited the severity of Cruz’s injury as another obstacle he’s had to overcome. It’s one that, along with a tender hamstring, has affected his performance at times and required rest this season.

“He basically had an NFL injury — he had a football injury on a baseball field — and what we’ve learned from talking to people in the NFL is, it’s basically two years until they’re really back and not feeling anything,” Cherington said Sunday. “He’s probably feeling something pretty regularly all year. The insight we’ve gotten from others is that’s pretty normal and next year he’ll feel even better.”

Tellez emphasized that Cruz had played only 98 career games entering the year, so this is his first full season in the majors even if he’s exceeded rookie standards.

“He missed a crucial year,” Tellez said. “A guy that plays a premium position — all eyes are on a shortstop — I think there’s a lot of weight on his shoulders to have success. Sometimes, the understanding of age is overlooked in this game. He’s 25, but in baseball terms, he’s not really because he missed his age 24 season. And the game of baseball is way, way different in the big leagues than anywhere else. It’s way faster, more mental. Nobody wants to make mistakes. It’s how we handle it when we do.”

‘Careless errors’

Speed is a signature of Cruz’s game, including measuring the mph of his elite exit velocities and arm strength (95.8), but Pirates manager Derek Shelton also blamed Cruz rushing to make routine plays “too fast” as a cause for his “careless errors.”

Cruz was errorless in a 20-game stretch from May 23 to June 23 before making mistakes in back-to-back games at Cincinnati. He completed a 16-game stretch without an error from June 26-July 20 before making two against Philadelphia on July 21. Since then, Cruz has 12 errors.

In a 5-4 loss at the Houston Astros on July 31 — the start of a stretch in which the Pirates lost 12 of 13 games — Cruz had three costly errors, including two on one play.

The first was a throwing error that allowed leadoff batter Jeremy Pena to reach second base in the second inning, when he advanced on a fielder’s choice and scored on a wild pitch. The next came when Cruz chased a Yordan Alvarez fly ball deep into left field only to drop it, then made an errant throw to home plate that allowed Chas McCormick to score and Alvarez to reach third, where he was driven in on Yainer Diaz’s double.

Another defensive lapse came in a 3-0 loss on Aug. 13 at the San Diego Padres, when Cruz missed Luis Ortiz’s throw to second base for a would-be 1-6-3 double play on a Jake Cronenworth comebacker in the first inning. Instead, Jurickson Profar was safe at second and Luis Arraez scored on Manny Machado’s sacrifice fly for an early lead.

“Those are the things that we have to clean up because in June and the first part of July, he was really consistent and caught the ball and was in a good spot,” Shelton said. “Right now, we’ve got to make sure he slows back down. It looks like he’s sped himself up a little bit and that’s causing him to make errors.”

From July 27 through Sunday’s 10-3 loss to Seattle, when he had a throwing error in the two-run second inning, Cruz committed 10 errors in a 17-game stretch. Those mistakes coincided with and contributed to the Pirates’ 10-game losing streak, prompting questions about whether they can continue to keep Cruz at such a prominent position.

While major league talent evaluators are impressed by Cruz’s physical attributes, they have long expressed reservations about whether he could stay at shortstop.

“I never thought Oneil Cruz is a championship-caliber shortstop,” one told TribLive. “I’ve always had my concerns. Oneil Cruz will make the great play and boot the routine play. I want a shortstop that’s going to make the routine play 10 out of 10 times.

“I think there’s loss of focus at times because things come so easy because of his natural ability. I don’t know if it’s ever going to click. I think he would hit even more if you stuck him in the outfield, just because there’s less pressure.”

‘I see myself as a shortstop’

The Pirates have toyed with the idea of trying Cruz in the outfield, both in Grapefruit League games during spring training and in the minor leagues. In 2022, they put him in left field in 10 games at Triple-A Indianapolis and one inning in the majors.

“He acted like he did not want to be out there. It was embarrassing,” the talent evaluator told TribLive. “If he’s not going to buy into it, what are you going to do? I think you’re hurting yourself more.”

Cherington has carefully sidestepped that topic, complimenting Cruz for his work with bench coach Don Kelly and infield coach Mendy Lopez to improve his defense and understanding of the nuances of the position.

Kelly pointed to Cruz accepting the challenge of becoming the lead on double cuts, going to the edge of the right field grass to cut off the relay and make throws to home plate.

“He’s got a special arm,” Kelly said. “Up until this year, that was inconsistent, as far as where’s he going? Is he recognizing those ahead of time? This year he has started to and he’s going all the way to the right field line to throw guys out. That’s a big thing. We want the ball to be in the hands of our best arm. That’s him.”

There’s also a belief that Cruz’s arm would play in right field, that his speed would serve him well in the cavernous center and left fields at PNC Park and his length could allow him to rob home runs anywhere except in front of the 21-foot Clemente Wall in right.

Cherington noted Sunday that history has shown that middle infielders tend to make easier transitions to the outfield, although shoulder injuries prompted some of the more successful switches. In the 1980s, Milwaukee’s Robin Yount was a Gold Glove shortstop who won AL MVP awards at both shortstop and in the outfield. More recently, San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. was an All-Star who committed 21 errors in 102 games at shortstop in 2021 before switching to right field and winning Gold and Platinum Glove awards last season.

For now, the Pirates are committed to have Cruz at shortstop — if for no other reason than they don’t have a better alternative in their system. Then again, Cruz insists that his preference is to have his glove on the infield dirt.

“I see myself as a shortstop. That’s the position I’ve played all my life,” said Cruz, who also saw some time at third base in the minors. “I feel like I’ve been improving a lot at the position. I don’t really listen to people that say they want me to move to the outfield. There’s nothing on my mind right now that takes me to the outfield. I’m just preparing myself to play shortstop on a daily basis.”

Is he growing tired of hearing about a potential position switch?

“It gets old sometimes,” Cruz said, “but, at the same time, I use that as fuel to get better at shortstop, to be a better player every day.”