The Dream of Oneil Cruz

People often ask if I think that advanced stats have taken some of the romance and magic out of baseball. I don’t think it’s a completely honest answer to say, “No, not at all.” There are fun things that we used to believe about baseball that, with all the new knowledge, are harder to hold onto. There was an undeniable romance about the simple clarity of batting average and pitcher wins and errors that does not always translate to OPS or FIP or Outs Above Average, even if those newr stats are exponentially more revealing.

But sometimes, advanced stats can add a little something we couldn’t know before.

Take the final out of Thursday night’s game between the Pirates and Angels.

California had a legend on the mound, the effervescent Kenley Jansen, and Pittsburgh sent the intermittently breathtaking Oneil Cruz to the plate. There was a runner on first, so the game was on the line. Cruz had already hit a home run in the game. Jansen was trying to lock down the 453rd save of his career (Only three pitchers have saved more and all three are in the Hall of Fame).

Jansen threw the pitch he’s famous for throwing — his mid-90s cutter.

Cruz took the swing he’s becoming famous for — big, bold, electrifying.

“Cruz laces one to right,” the announcer said without an overwhelming amount of emotion, “Trout moves over, makes the running catch, say goodnight to the Pirates.”

And that was that. It was a hard-hit ball, it was a fairly easy play for Trout, and the game was over.

Except for this: Because of Statcast, we know that Oneil Cruz smashed that ball 119.3 mph. I

t was the hardest hit line drive this year.

Cruz now has the two hardest-hit line drives all season. Last year, he had the FOUR hardest-hit line drives all season. It’s incredible.

Oneil Cruz is not a star yet, to the understandable frustration of Pirates fans. He strikes out a lot, and he will go into massive slumps, and the Pittsburgh still hasn’t quite figured out a position for him — his early days in centerfield have been, er, adventurous.

But when he’s right … well, look out now, Cruz’s strikeouts are down, and his walks are up, and he leads the league in steals, and on any pitch he might just blast a 120-mph rocket.

It’s enough to get a baseball fan dreaming.

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