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What part’s of Oneil Cruz’s hot start are sustainable
(Top Image Credit: Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images)

What part’s of Oneil Cruz’s hot start are sustainable

Originally posted on Last Word On Sports  |  By Noah Wright  |  Last updated Apr 12, 2026 10:32 PM ET

Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Oneil Cruz is off to a scorching hot start to 2026. He has 20 hits through his first 65 plate appearances of the season. Of those 20 knocks, eight have been extra base hits, including five home runs and three doubles. At the time of writing this, Cruz’s 38 total bases are the fourth most in MLB, just three bases behind the league leader and division rival outfielder, Jordan Walker. Overall, Cruz is slashing .339/.400/.644, and is on an 11-game hit streak.

This start is an extremely promising start for Cruz, who ended last year with an 86 wRC+ with a 59 wRC+ from the start of June through the end of the season. Even though it’s still so early, what parts of Cruz’s season thus far are sustainable, what isn’t, and what can we expect from him overall?

What is sustainable

While it may be obvious, Oneil Cruz’s power is likely to hold up throughout the entire year. Cruz has always shown off some of the best raw power in baseball. Last year, he had a 95.8 MPH exit velocity, 56.6% hard hit rate, and 17.9% barrel percentage. Not much has changed this year, with a 95.9 MPH exit velo, 57.9% hard hit percentage, and 18.4% barrel rate.

There have been 92 instances of a batter having a barrel rate over 15% in at least 500 plate appearances in the Statcast Era (since 2015). The fewest home runs ever hit while having a barrel rate that high is 21, by Cruz last year and Bryce Harper in 2023. Every instance of a player having a barrel rate of at least 18% has hit 35 or more home runs.

Cruz’s power output also seems sustainable, given his launch angle sweet spot percentage and squared-up rate, which are significantly higher than last year. The slugger had just a 31.5% sweet spot rate and 21.8% squared up rate last season. Both were in the bottom 16th percentile of qualified hitters in 2025. However, his sweet spot rate is now up to 37.9% (79th percentile), and his squared-up rate is up to 26.3% (66th percentile).

What isn’t sustainable

Oneil likely won’t end the year while hitting .340. His batting average on balls in play is an insanely high .441 mark. No hitter since Yoan Moncada in 2019 has put up a BABIP over .400 in at least 500 plate appearances. The last hitters to put up a BABIP over .410 in at least 500 trips to the plate include Rogers Hornsby in 1924 and Babe Ruth in 1923. Cruz also has a whiff rate of just 39.6%.

Now granted, he’ll likely still sustain a higher-than-average BABIP. Cruz’s BABIP in 2024 was .347. Cruz hits the ball so hard that, naturally, more of his non-home run batted balls are going to fall for hits. His plus speed also gives him the chance to beat out ground balls deep in the hole to an infielder, or on the occasions he hits slow ground balls or tough choppers. Cruz may not put up a batting average that doesn’t look out of place on Tony Gwynn’s stat sheet, but he still should hit around .260-.270 on the year. His expected batting average throughout this small sample size is .310.

What to expect from Cruz for the rest of the year

A lot of things look different for Cruz this year, and in a good way. His fast swing rate is down from 78.8% last year to 75.3% this year. However, now his squared-up contact rate is up to 44.6%. He has also maintained an elite bat speed of 78 MPH. Cruz has also changed his stance in the box. He closed the distance between his feet from 40.6 inches last year to 36.8 inches this year, while opening his stance from 10 degrees to 14 degrees.

The lineup protection seems to be working for Cruz. Last year, 55.4% of the pitches Cruz saw were outside the strike zone. Of the 221 batters who saw at least 1500 pitches last year, only two-time MVP Bryce Harper had a higher out-of-zone pitch rate at 57%. That means pitches thrown in the zone more frequently than Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber, Shohei Ohtani, and Cal Raleigh. So far this year, Cruz ranks 35th in out-of-zone pitch percentage among the 144 batters who have seen at least 200 pitches so far this year.

The bottom line is that Cruz is going to be a good hitter this year, a lot better than last year. He needs to chase slightly less and cut down his whiff rate, but neither is something we haven’t seen Cruz do before. His ceiling is akin to 2019 Josh Bell, who hit .277/.367/.569 with a 135 wRC+ and 37 home runs. Of course, Cruz also has the speed and baserunning prowess also to swipe 30 bases (he already has five). However, his floor is something akin to a .260/.320/.500 hitter with 30 home runs.

This article first appeared on Last Word On Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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