Andrew McCutchen Shares Exciting Thought on Pirates Star
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Center fielder Oneil Cruz has all of the tools necessary to establish himself as one of MLB's best players, and he has the luxury of playing alongside a Pittsburgh Pirates legend in Andrew McCutchen who's laid the blueprint for success with the club.
"[He] definitely means a lot to me,” Cruz said, via MLB.com's Alex Stumpf. “Just to have a guy like him around me to pour all his information and his knowledge and his years in the big leagues to me and to some other teammates, just to have him around, is a big help because he's been through a lot of experiences in the big leagues. That helps us as we're starting to build a career in the big leagues, just to have a guy like him."
Cruz and McCutchen have been teammates since 2023, though a fractured left ankle ended the former's season just nine games into their first year together.
Cruz returned to action during the 2024 campaign and hit .259/.324/.449 with 21 home runs, 76 RBIs and 22 stolen bases in 146 games (599 plate appearances).
Those numbers were solid in and of themselves, but Cruz's underlying metrics are where most of the optimism was derived from.
His bat speed (78.6 mph), average exit velocity (95.5 mph), barrel (15.7%) and hard-hit (54.9%) rates all ranked in the 97th percentile or higher amongst all batters in the league last season, per Baseball Savant.
Cruz is still plagued by strikeouts and chases pitches out of the zone with regularity, but his elite batted ball data shows that there's another left for him to reach.
McCutchen, who won the 2013 National League MVP during his first stint with the Pirates, knows what it takes to perform at the highest level. Even so, he inferred that Cruz could surpass the heights he reached and that the sky is his limit.
“There is none,” McCutchen said. “He doesn’t have one yet. You’ve got Shohei Ohtani, he’s in his own threshold being a pitcher and position player. He does things that people go, ‘I’ve never seen that done.’ [Cruz] does the same stuff, stuff you’ve never seen.
“He’s working on an open space. He has no ceiling. He’s building the foundation. Time will come when he knows what that is, and then the ceiling will start. As of right now, endless possibilities for him. I hope that’s how he views it.”
Jack is a New Jersey native who graduated from the University of Pittsburgh as a Media & Professional Communications major in 2024 who is now covering the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Yankees for On SI.