Nelson Cruz is 34 years old and has been playing in the big leagues since 2005, when he received a 7 plate appearance cup of coffee with the Milwaukee Brewers. In those 7 plate appearances, he hit zero homeruns. Since that time, he’s amassed a total of 3918 plate appearances and bashed a total of 205 homeruns. Nelson Cruz developed his boomstick.
His power took a little while to develop. That’s not surprising, it generally takes players time to develop major league batting power. It wasn’t until 2009 that the Nelson Cruz that we know appeared in the batters box.