Oneil Cruz Was Here Too

Remembering Past Hype

Entering the 2023 Super Bowl I read this fantastic ESPN piece titled “Joe Montana Was Here.”

The article was a feature on the four-time Super Bowl champion, formerly known as the greatest quarterback of all-time — prior to Tom Brady’s ascent throughout his own historic career.

Montana isn’t forgotten, but his place in NFL history has been altered. While it’s admittedly dramatic for me to compare these two quarterback legends to Elly De La Cruz and Oneil Cruz, I can’t help but think of the similarities between Montana and the Pirates’ freakish-athletic, young shortstop.

Elly is all the rage right now, and rightfully so, but at this time last year so was Oneil Cruz. And the gap in their perceived values could make the latter a fantasy baseball draft target for 2024.

Similarities

I need to stress that the below table isn’t everything — far from it, with tons of context needed for almost every stat plus an understanding that these guys are both young with such raw tools that skill sets could change quickly.

That being said, I was fascinated by how similar they’ve been throughout the first 400+ plate appearances of their big league careers, particularly the first five rows.

We know Oneil and Elly are both freakishly athletic, and one of the first times they came onto the fantasy scene in a big way was with ridiculous max exit velocities.

On August 24th, 2022 Oneil recorded the hardest-hit ball in Statcast history, obliterating a 122.4 mph single.

This past May Elly scolded a ball three different times in the same Triple-A game, maxing out at 118.8 mph, which firmly put him on the map as a must-have prospect call-up. He topped it in MLB with a 119.2 mph mark, which was the third-highest maxEV in 2023.

It’s funny how similar their surface-level plate discipline metrics are, because they’ve arrived at those marks in different ways.

Key Differences

Last month we covered Elly’s declining chase rate on this very Substack. Yes, he stopped chasing as the season went on, but that primarily stemmed from a refusal to swing altogether.

What we’ve seen from Oneil over time has been the ideal outcome. Less chasing with more in-zone swings:

Yet is it possible that these improvements have been somewhat artificially inflated? Oneil made monstrous improvements in September 2022, particularly with his strikeout rate (which dropped from 37.8% entering the final month of play to 29.8% in September/October).

That’s impressive, but it’s worth pointing out the Pirates began limiting his playing time against lefties, which was because of an unholy 51.6% career strikeout rate against them! That number isn’t just bad — it’s completely and utterly unplayable.

For what it’s worth, Cruz was in the lineup against the only lefty starter he had the chance to face in 2023, though he was dropped in the order from leadoff to sixth.

As a switch-hitter, Elly theoretically shouldn’t face the same platoon issues, but it’s impossible to overlook his own struggles against southpaws:

As for more differences, Oneil turned 25 this past October while Elly will be playing all of next season at 22 years old.

Elly also has the more favorable home park, which includes the No. 1 HR environment in baseball due to its tiny dimensions.

Oneil isn’t exactly playing in Seattle, though PNC Park is far more favorable for singles/doubles as opposed to homers.

Opportunity Cost

The title of this piece and brief Brady/Montana comparison are meant to be fun, but in actuality nobody has forgotten about Oneil. While Elly is far more expensive on both the NFBC and Underdog, it isn’t as if Oneil is an afterthought:

(Note NFBC ADP is via 85 December drafts!)

And yet, I can’t help but think of an alternate timeline where Oneil doesn’t hurt his ankle and the fantasy community has another chance to draft him at a value like this.

That injury creates risk, but it also could mean one more shot at getting early-round production in the middle portion of drafts. Cruz isn’t forgotten, but the feverish hype surrounding him has quieted.

All it’ll take are a few spring training moonshots for people to remember how we felt about his upside entering 2023.

And that’s something to consider in early drafts as the rest of the fantasy baseball community begins gearing up more for 2024.