{"id":680491,"date":"2026-04-21T18:18:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/680491\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:18:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:18:25","slug":"pirates-breakout-star-draws-shocking-comparison-to-barry-bonds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/680491\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Breakout Star Draws Shocking Comparison To Barry Bonds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now in his sixth Major League season, Oneil Cruz finally seems to be putting it all together. The <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/pittsburgh-pirates\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> center fielder is <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/pittsburgh-pirates\/news\/former-world-series-champion-reveals-whats-fueling-pirates-stars-scorching-start\/a398114fda24001e178e7be3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">off to a fantastic start<\/a> in his age-27 season, batting .292\/.364\/.551 with six home runs,\u00a019 RBI and an NL-leading nine stolen bases through 22 games.<\/p>\n<p>If he keeps it up, Cruz has a chance to become just the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/pittsburgh-pirates\/news\/former-mlb-gm-boldly-predicts-historic-season-pirates-star\/95eb976d9f3e2d6470fa25db\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">second player in Pirates history<\/a> with 30 homers and 30 steals in the same season, joining Barry Bonds. At this pace, he might even threaten\u00a040\/40.<\/p>\n<p>The comparison to Bonds is an interesting one, as Cruz has a similar profile with his speed and power. In fact, some of their numbers are <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/joe_block\/status\/2046323785092227356\" rel=\"nofollow\">eerily similar<\/a> at the same point in their careers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Comparing Oneil Cruz and Barry Bonds at exact points early in their careers:<\/p>\n<p>In their first 1,652 plate appearances: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kcyhc2Oozi\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/kcyhc2Oozi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Joe Block (@joe_block) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joe_block\/status\/2046323785092227356?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">April 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Through their first 1,652 career plate appearances, Cruz has\u00a066 homers and 82 steals. Meanwhile, Bonds had\u00a064 homers and 84 steals.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s important to note that Bonds was four years younger at that point. He also has Cruz beat in most other categories, including WAR, hits and all three triple slash stats, plus Bonds was a much better defender.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it&#8217;s impressive to even be mentioned in the same breath as Bonds, who&#8217;s arguably the greatest baseball player of all time. There may never be another player like him, but Cruz is the closest thing Pittsburgh&#8217;s got these days.<\/p>\n<p>More MLB:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/pittsburgh-pirates\/news\/pirates-manager-takes-hard-stance-konnor-griffin-demotion-rumors\/d98175d26bcbb74e1513f612\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pirates Manager Takes Hard Stance On Konnor Griffin Demotion Rumors<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                            <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now in his sixth Major League season, Oneil Cruz finally seems to be putting it all together. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,4,10,776,64,4297],"class_list":{"0":"post-680491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-pirates","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","13":"tag-pittsburghpirates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116444079319195189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}