DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Cruz vs. … Mendoza?

Just because I’ll cut up on Ben Cherington and his white collared analytical army doesn’t mean I’m not into stats. Doesn’t mean I’m not into advanced stats. Good morning to you. Good Wednesday morning. I’m Dan Kvakovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you’re into football andor hockey, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. Giants eight, Pirates won last night at PNC Park. San Francisco finally winning one of these teams first five meetings. The last one will be a matinea today at 12:35 p.m. Mike Burroughs got clubbed six runs on five hits and three walks over four and two/3 innings. And to hear him tell it, it wasn’t the hits that bothered him. Yeah. I mean, I was really just mad about the walks. um if they pop those up on first pitch heaters. I mean, we’re, you know, we’re not even talking about it, but yeah, they they can bush heaters and they got a hold of them and, you know, it’s kind of just tip your hat. Good for them. Um just more so mad about the walks. Braxton Ashcraft came in after that, gave up a couple more runs in two and a third innings. Offensively, not much going on either. Brian Reynolds two for four with an RBI and a double. Yeah, not going to get too deep into analyzing this one, I guess. Within all this, O’Neal Cruz went 0 for four with a strikeout. And over his past seven games, he’s 2 for31 with 12 strikeouts. And for the season, might want to sit down for this one. Cruz’s batting average, just basic batting average, is now at 209. One more time for emphasis here. 209. He’s 26 years old. This is his second full season in the majors. His first where he’s an entire year removed from that ugly ankle injury. And yet he is currently 30 points under his own career average of 238. in 2024. For further perspective, he batted 259. Repeating yet again, he’s now at 209, 50 points worth of nose dive there. Now, he’s also shown more power this season and unrelated really to his hitting, but he’s shown more efficiency on the base paths. But he’s also on a comfortable pace to blow through the 181 strikeouts that he had last year. He’s already at 137. Here’s the semi pseudo quasi advanced stuff that I was referencing to me. OPS, which is on base percentage plus slugging. OPS is the most complete offensive statistic that exists without getting into all kinds of hieroglyphics because it obviously factors in walks, it factors in power, it factors in really almost everything, not stolen bases. And the truth is, in modern baseball, you can live with a low batting average. You can live with batting averages that used to get you banished from the sport at any level. Call it the Kyle Schwarber era if you want. No one cares in Philadelphia how many times Schwarber strikes out. No one cares that he’s batting .258. What they care about is that he’s got 40 home runs, 94 RBI’s, and a 973 OPS in large part because, well, I should say in equal parts because of his extraordinary power, but also that he works a lot of walks. He finds a way to get on base. His OBP is 382. Somewhat different kind of player in a different time. Well, Cruz’s OPS of 711 is 62 points below where he was last year at 773. For those of you who’ve been with this program for a while, you’ll know that over the course of Andy Haynes’s tenure as hitting coach here, I might not have had two good words to say about his job performance. But the one area that I gave him credit for, and it was only one was that he made Cruz, well, he helped Cruz looked like more of a complete player at the plate. Every once in a while, you’d see Cruz just kind of lay the bat out there and get himself a single, go the other way, do deliberate things with the bat that don’t have anything to do with his extraordinary, actually superhuman exit velocity capabilities. I don’t want to say that’s completely gone from Cruz’s arsenal now because we’ve seen patches where he looks like he’s doing a lot of good things at the plate, including showing the better eye that he began developing in 2024. So, what is it that could have happened to him? What is it that’s missing? So I went digging a whole lot deeper and I saw that almost all of the peripheral super specific figures that are available don’t vary that much between 2024 and 2025. He’s remained mostly disciplined. His whiff rate, which is exactly what it sounds like. How many times he swings and misses at a given pitch, is only a half a percentage point off. Last year it was 34.1%. This year is 34.6%. But then I ran into one. I ran into a doozy. And I say that mostly because of its awesome name. on the baseball savant website and that’s property of Major League Baseball. There’s one called meatball swing percentage. I love this. It’s exactly what it sounds like as well. Meatball. What’s that? It’s a killable pitch. It’s It’s just sitting there dead red waiting for you to deliver to it the abuse that it deserves. A year ago, when Cruz would see a meatball, he would swing at it 77.3% of the time. That was a career high for him. This year, that’s plunged from that 77.3% to 66.1%. He’s knocked 11.2% 2% off of that singular and vitally important tendency to go at the pitches that are just being handed to him. And if that aligns for you in your head the way it did for me as soon as I saw it, like I’m thinking, “Yeah, he’s watching a lot of balls coming right down Grant Street and not doing anything with them. Please don’t make me say yet again who in this organization above all others emphasizes running up pitch counts for the sake of running up pitch counts when we come back J1Q. If you’re looking for a great dining experience, look no further than Northshore Tavern. Located directly across Federal Street from PNC Park, next door to Mike’s Beer Bar, Northshore Tavern is Pittsburgh’s home for steak on a stone. Enjoy your steak finished on a hot lava stone in front of you where you ensure each piece is cooked to exactly your liking. Or try their rotating selection of entre, hot sandwiches, salads, and burgers, all while enjoying the ambiance dedicated to the great players and history of the Pittsburgh Pirates all around you. Come see why everyone’s talking about Northshore Tavern and Steak on a Stone. It’s Gun Storage Check Week. Help prevent unwanted access to your firearms. No one wants their unsecured gun to be used in an accident, a suicide, or a crime. Use lockboxes, safes, and locks to secure your firearms. Learn more at gunstorage check.org. That’s gunstoch check.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the Firearm Industry Trade Association. Today’s J1Q comes from Trent, who says, “DK, supposedly Bob Nutting was frustrated in 2019 about players significantly improving once they’d leave the Pirates during Neil Huntington’s tenure. The numerous examples don’t need to be mentioned again, but how does Nutting feel about Quinn Priest’s season that’s ongoing in Milwaukee? For anybody who hasn’t been keeping up with our old friend and the former first round pick, Prister is now 11-2 for the Brewers, including 10 straight winning decisions. He’s got a 3.15 ERA. If you’re one of those people, as am I, who doesn’t put hardly any stock in wins and losses, a 3.15 ERA. In 21 appearances, 16 of those being starts. In 114 innings, he’s got 93 strikeouts. Yes. Priest against 38 walks. All of that comes with a 1.19 whip. That’s walks and hits per inning pitched. That’s very good. And a 228 opponent’s batting average. To answer your question, in the most literal sense, in none of my talks with Bob Nutting this year has Prister ever come up. So the answer here is I don’t know. However, I’m not about to stop there because when Pritor was here, let me rephrase that. before Priest was here when I would watch him in Bradenton or wherever he was in spring training. I remember the first time that I observed it, the first time I commented on it for public consumption was a game that the Pirates were playing in spring training against the Orioles down in Sarasota where Priest looked like he was just petrified to throw his fast ball. Now, at the time, the Orioles had some pretty big bats, and I I kind of got that and he was young and still hadn’t been in the majors yet. Well, you know, they’ll get that fixed. I mean, they’re going to get him to throw his fastball. You have to throw your fastball. And you really have to be able to throw your fastball in times of trouble. So, I would bring this up with Priest. I did it that day in Sarasota. I did it another time in Bradenon again before he ever got to Pittsburgh. He gets to Pittsburgh and you remember those results. I mean, he was getting plastered for the most part and that same tendency was still in place. You could still see that he just kept leaning on his soft stuff. Well, the Brewers, who are run by smart people, recognized this after getting Prister from the Red Sox, but they also recognized that Prister was visibly more comfortable with throwing the two seam fastball than he was the fourseam fast ball. The latter being, you know, just your basic fast ball. And they said, “Listen, just forget about it. Just throw the two seamer. Just anything at all to get the fastball more involved.” So, let’s flip back to those advanced statistics, which really are useful as long as you’re doing something useful with them. The percentage of Priesters pitches that were two seam fast balls in 2024 was 30.2. This year, it’s 44.0. And guess what? because he’s throwing it more often and with greater confidence, his velocity has ticked up from 93.1 mph on average to 93.8 m an hour on average. He’s getting more whiffs on that pitch than he ever has. He’s getting more putaways, way more putaways than he ever had in the past utilizing that pitch. And if you want me to annoy you one last time on this episode, Priers’s 24 years old. He’s going to be part of the Brewers rotation for some time. And this club, the one that drafted him, the one that had eyes on him for years, the one that should have had the most thorough, detailed, exhaustive book on him, couldn’t recognize something that anybody in any set of seats in any stadium could have seen from the upper deck. I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’re going to have another one of these tomorrow. with that

Oneil Cruz vs. the Mendoza Line? I mean, come on.

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18 comments

  1. I get as excited when Cruz gets a double as I do when he hits a dinger. I still have faith he’ll figure it out still.

  2. cruz reminds me of Dave Kingman he hits the long ball but nothing else I call it an all or nothing hitter Ben loves those type of players

  4. Cruz has so much talent. I'm hoping that his Baseball acumen can catch up. Because if he's satisfied with making it to the big leagues and getting paid then this is it.
    Much like years ago a sportswriter wrote an article asking if Griffey Jr was satisfied being a top 10% guy or if he wanted to be Great. Jr took the challenge and the rest is history.

  5. I feel like he’s in a difficult position. To me I see him swinging through the meatball pitches he should be putting in play rather than not swinging at them at all. And not to defend him at all, but then the other half of the time, it’s a called strike way too low because he is 6’7, and the at bat ends with him whiffing at a ball in the dirt . And let me tell you from baseball experience it is NOT GOOD when you’re questioning your own strike zone because then you start chasing. I feel like this doesn’t get brought up enough about Cruz or for that matter taller players. We don’t talk about it with someone like judge because he puts the ball in play, I just think he should be doing that rather than seeing pitches.

  6. He overswings. I remember watching Mays and Aaron taking batting practice. Smooth easy swings sending balls about 10-20 feet over the fence in almost the same spot. No tape measure jobs. Over and over, probably 9 out of 10 piches. This crap about exit velicities, home run derbies, etc. just gives him reinforcement to overswing. Cut down the length and force of the swing and go quick and smooth.

  10. This Team Can’t Hit. This Organization doesn’t know how to develop players. It’s also difficult to learn how to hit; and learn to play 30 positions that this GM wants every player to be able to do.

  11. If his whiff rate is the same but his strikeouts are up he must be taking more strike threes. In other words, turning into Suwinski. Cherington is smiling.

  13. The stats that really tell us what's going on with Cruz start and end with launch angle. He can't consistently hit the ball off the ground. When you hit grounders, you get out. The past couple years he's either hit a GB or FB and has far less line drives. Needs to be more around 25% LD and needs to drop that GB rate proportionally. Only way to do that is through better launch and consistency with it. The fact that he's more a FB/GB hitter tells me he doesn't have much consistency. You want to be more of a LD/FB hitter. All this is solved by increasing launch. This is something the Pirates aren't able to develop. It was Hayes' problem and it's Reynolds' problem too.

    If you go back and look at all the acquisitions, less the Yorke trade, the past year, you'll notice that every single hitter does what I'm telling you. Every single one has demonstrated good launch angle. Flores has done this too.

    To me this is running the white flag up the flag pole saying we can't develop it so we're gonna acquire it. Bottom line, the issue isn't about more K or whatever, it's about controlling the results of the balls out in play. The Pirates are completely incapable of developing more optimal launch angles. Starts and end there.

  14. Here’s a stat. Since May 25th, small market Milwaukee Brewers are 44-16. That is the best 60 game stretch in team history. They lead the NL Central by 4 games, and have the best record in MLB. It’s not easy, but you can have success in a small market.

  15. It's UNBELIEVABLE to Me just HOW MANY times they LET GO of YOUNG TALENT, Let me say that One more time YOUNG TALENT. I Really liked Quin Priester and Bailey Faulter as well as David Bednar and Key Bryan Hayes all Very Talented player and yet time and time again we just GIVE AWAY the Future to Safe a Dollar!!! Why on Earth do you OWN A TEAM if you don't EVER want to win a World Series cause You don't want to SPEND MONEY to Compete. Make it MAKE SENSE!!!! Those 4 players I mentioned were OUR FUTURE and We gave it ALL AWAY to Safe a DOLLAR SMH!!!!

  16. Huntington's problem was not that he could not find talented baseball players- it was that he couldn't actually get good baseball out of the players he found. That's why Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton, Tyler Glasnow, and the too many others to name stung so much. Cherington has the opposite problem. Instead of finding players and not tapping into them properly, he just finds bad players. Remember Roansy Contreras? Zach Thompson? Bryse Wilson? Osvaldo Bido? Michael Chavis? Yu Chang? All of these guys have received serious chances to establish themselves on the team, but just flat out did not the skill to establish themselves in the big leagues. I cannot name a single Cherington acquisition that has gone on to be successful after leaving Pittsburgh. Priester seems to be the lone exception, until you realize that he was a HUNTINGTON ACQUISITION- yes, Cherington oversaw most of his development, but Priester was inherited by Cherington, not acquired by him. Where Huntington aggravated fans by letting seemingly garbage players go and them suddenly improving upon leaving Pittsburgh, Cherington just flat out does not find quality players to begin with. There is a reason that, to this date, all of our major extensions and best players were inherited by Cherington (Reynolds, Cruz, Keller)- BECAUSE HE JUST DOES NOT FIND QUALITY PLAYERS! SELL THE TEAM!

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