Oneil Cruz certainly wowed the crowd at Atlanta’s Truist Park and the baseball world on Monday at the 2025 T-Mobile Home Run Derby. He was the sixth Pirate to participate in the derby, joining Bobby Bonilla (1990), Barry Bonds (1992), Andrew McCutchen (2012), Pedro Alvarez (2013), and Josh Bell (2019).
Cruz, despite his struggles at the plate this season, was undoubtedly an excellent choice for this competition. He holds the Statcast record of the hardest hit ball in an MLB game at 122.9 MPH, and in the derby, he had 9 of the 10 longest home runs hit.