This is a position group that holds several of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ top young players, including phenom shortstop Oneil Cruz, who is arguably the biggest attaction at PNC Park.
The 6’7”, 22-year-old Cruz regularly set records on exit velocity and throwing speed and finished with a pretty nice line in 2022. Across 87 games. Cruz hit .233 with 17 homers and 54 RBIs. Extrapolate that out to a full season and you have a 30-homer, 100-RBI guy, and he’s barely old enough to legally drink.
He hit 13 doubles, 4 triples and also stole 11 bases, illustrating his athleticism, and the golf shots he regularly smacked over the wall at PNC were a thing of beauty.