Oneil Cruz has all the tools.

The Pittsburgh Pirates‘ outfielder needs to fix just one problem to be one of the best players in baseball.

Simply put: Cruz whiffs too much.

He runs as fast as anyone. He hits the ball as far as anyone. He throws the ball as far as anyone.

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Baseball, over a 162-game season, is about consistency, though. And Cruz needs just a little bit more of that.

That’d start at the plate by simply making more contact.

“While there’s plenty of value in league-average players, Cruz quite obviously has another gear in him if it comes together,” MLB.com’s Brent Maguire wrote in a new article on Monday. “The elevated strikeout rate (career 31.7 percent rate) is the No. 1 culprit and if he can shave that figure down, there’s the baseline for a star player.”

Maguire did run down all of Cruz’s tools with some numbers, and it’s an impressive list.

“He owns the two hardest-hit baseballs in the Statcast era, including a 122.9 mph home run last May,” Maguire wrote. “His 29.2 feet-per-second sprint speed last season placed him in the 93rd percentile of players. And his 98.2 mph arm strength was tops among all players.”

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The Pirates have a lot of young talent, and they’ve supplemented that this offseason by making some shrewd acquisitions.

Cruz, though, is the X-factor, Maguire writes. If he can reach closer to his ceiling, the Pirates will have a rising superstar on their hands.

But if he remains inconsistent, that’s one spot that is just a bit disappointing, and it makes it tougher for Pittsburgh as a whole to become the best version of itself.

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