It’s Time To Get Excited About Oneil Cruz and Elly De La Cruz

How about this: How about you and I overlook for a pair minutes that we’re at FanGraphs, deep within the stat-swamped soul of the sabermetrics neighborhood? Let’s simply faux you’re studying an article on an internet site with a reputation like SuperCoolBaseballStuff.com. This will not be the time to get misplaced within the weeds. Spring is within the air, and we’re rhapsodizing concerning the scent of the freshly lower grass. The birds have returned, and so they’re waking us up at daybreak with their incessant noises. Now is the time to be enthusiastic about baseball (and irritated concerning the birds), and fairly merely, no one does extra thrilling stuff on a baseball area than Oneil Cruz and Elly De La Cruz. So let’s hold it easy. Let’s speak about all of the superlatives that make the pair so thrilling as we race towards the 2024 season.

For the primary time, each Cruz and De La Cruz shall be within the present on the identical time. Cruz was referred to as up for good in June 2022, and he completed the season on a excessive observe, working a 133 wRC+ over the ultimate month. He got here into 2023 with the said objective of a 30-30 season, however in simply his ninth sport, he fractured his left fibula throughout a collision on the plate. De La Cruz was referred to as up in June 2023 and promptly went supernova. He ran a 179 wRC+ with eight stolen bases and 10 extra-base hits over his first 16 video games, however struggled over the previous couple of months. This 12 months, they’ll be the Opening Day shortstops for his or her respective groups, and Cruz is on report saying that his ankle feels not simply 100%, however 200%, which can very nicely be a report.

Somehow, the 2 gamers are extraordinarily comparable whereas additionally being utterly unprecedented. The similarities begin with their surnames, after which there’s the truth that they’re each younger, ridiculously tall shortstops who hail from the Dominican Republic and play within the NL Central. The peak factor is probably going a much bigger deal than you notice. Cruz is 6’7” and De La Cruz is 6’5”. According to Stathead, that makes them simply the seventh and eighth gamers ever to be 6’5” or taller and play a single inning of shortstop in, ahem, the bigs. They’re the one ones ever to be common starters on the place; these different six mixed for a complete of 113 video games at brief. You’re not going to imagine this, however till Cruz dethroned him, the chief was Michael Morse, with 57 video games. The 6’5” Morse, who completed his profession with -73.2 whole defensive runs, totaled 450 innings at brief for the Mariners in 2005, racking up -13 DRS and a UZR/150 of -20.9.

Cruz and De La Cruz have each performed in precisely 98 massive league video games, and their skillsets are practically equivalent, as nicely. They’ve each walked 35 instances, struck out 33.7% of the time, and posted batting averages and on-base percentages inside two factors of each other. Here’s what that similarity seems to be like courtesy of some cherry-picked Baseball Savant sliders:

Not that it issues a lot, however 2022 Cruz is on the left and 2023 De La Cruz is on the correct. There’s a lot pink and a lot blue. These are insanely enjoyable profiles. Cruz and De La Cruz do every part at 100 miles per hour, aside from hitting the baseball, which they do at 120. They run like cheetahs who had been genetically modified for optimum velocity after which shot out of a cannon. They crush baseballs like PETA-members who simply came upon that the baseballs had been chargeable for performing the unlawful experiments on these cheetahs. They throw the ball over to first as in the event that they heard you get an additional out for those who handle to blast it proper via the primary baseman’s photo voltaic plexus. They whiff like they assume they will generate sufficient wind energy to resolve the local weather disaster all by themselves. They’re growth and bust personified. They’re the center schoolers who discovered that you possibly can sport the typing take a look at by completely going for broke, as a result of 150 phrases per minute minus a 50% error fee nonetheless leaves you at 75 phrases per minute. They’re like basketball performed on curler skates. It’s poetry when it really works, carnage when it doesn’t, and not possible to show away from.

As for whether or not the entire package deal will work, nicely that’s trickier. Here are the ultimate grades the 2 gamers obtained from our prospect group upon commencement:

Again, the numbers are very comparable, however Cruz, all of two inches taller, has a harder path defensively. He’s all the time been able to making an ideal play, however he’s by no means regarded like a positive factor at brief, by way of both vary or fingers, and he didn’t take a look at house in left area when the Pirates tried him on the market within the minors. In 2022, he graded out as a hair above common based on DRS, however the different defensive metrics didn’t love him. As he continues to fill out, he’s much less prone to keep his velocity and vary. On the opposite hand, he owns a profession 106 wRC+. He managed to chop his chase and whiff charges towards the top of 2022. In the brief samples of 12 LiDOM video games and 9 MLB video games, he boasted vastly improved stroll and strikeout charges in 2023. Those developments have now held via 9 spring coaching video games as nicely, lengthy sufficient for Cruz to tie for the MLB lead with 5 homers.

As Robert Orr demonstrated over at Baseball Prospectus, the switch-hitting De La Cruz made his personal plate self-discipline beneficial properties in the course of the 2023 season, going from a 38.8% chase fee in July to 25.7% in September and October. In truth, based on Pitcher List, by the top of the season, his swing selections had been nicely above common.

Although he ended the season on a low observe by way of efficiency, De La Cruz truly posted a .334 xwOBA in September and October, his finest determine of the season by a large margin. De La Cruz put up a 24.5% HR/FB in 2023, Tenth-highest amongst certified gamers, however that masked the truth that his 53.9% groundball fee was the Eleventh-highest. It’s potential that chasing much less gentle stuff under the zone will assist him to place extra balls within the air going ahead. Even if that doesn’t occur, it’s potential that he’ll simply hold hitting the ball arduous sufficient that he doesn’t have to carry it fairly often to do harm. Moreover, De La Cruz is healthier positioned to stay at shortstop. He graded out nicely based on OAA and UZR, although DRS and DRP had been much less impressed. Importantly, he’s additionally simply 22, and he has time to enhance. Although he put up simply an 84 wRC+ final 12 months, his protection and his propensity to take any and each base helped him put up 1.7 WAR in his 98 video games.

For each gamers, the long run has some really huge error bars. They’re simply 22 and 25 years outdated, and so they’ve but to play a full season’s price of video games. With apologies to Michael Morse, there simply aren’t many comparable gamers we are able to look to for insights on their improvement. Their instruments are so preposterous that their ceiling is someplace out by the asteroid belt. But their lengthy levers and their unproven eyes may hold them from ever making sufficient contact to benefit from all that energy. All the identical, even when they only handle to stay it out as league-average shortstops, they’ll obtain it by means of among the most electrical, entertaining baseball the world has ever seen. They’ll even be doing it in an period the place every 100 mph throw from deep within the gap and every 122 mph rocket off the bat may be tracked and marveled at in all its gaudy splendor. It’s time to get excited.