Oneil Cruz is widely regarded as one of baseball’s best power hitters after bursting onto the scene as a top prospect with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Though, throughout his time in minors, Oneil has had a glaring issue with his strikeout numbers. Since 2019, Cruz has maintained a K% of 22.7% or higher 6 times, in either a new level or returning to a level from the previous year. Cruz’s highest K% since 2019 was 34.9% excluding his 2 game stint in the MLB in 2021. What is causing this? Can it be fixed? We will be taking a look at one of the possible theories below.

Other Instances of the Theory Occurring

The theory we will be taking a look at today is the theory that Oneil Cruz is finally getting his full strike zone called by MLB umpires. Cruz, being 6’7″ gives him an extremely large strike zone at the plate. This should come to no surprise that this leads to more area for pitchers to throw to, potentially leading to an increase in strikeouts. Another 6’7″ slugger who saw this issue was the right-handed outfielder, Aaron Judge. In 2017, Aaron Judge went on a streak of 37 consecutive games recording a strikeout. Now, similarly to Cruz, Judge had always had high strikeout rates through the MiLB. But, after a 27 game stint in the MLB in 2016, and his full Rookie of the Year season in 2017, Aaron Judge saw as much of a 20.3% increase in K% from just jump from AAA to the MLB. These numbers very clearly represent the possibility of Aaron Judge never getting his true strike zone called until the MLB, similarly to the theory of Cruz’s issue. In 2019, this issue got so bad in fact that Judge pulled his pants higher after a low strikeout call. This was in an effort to try to convince the umpire of a smaller strike zone.

Establishing a Case for Cruz with K%

Now that we’ve theorized and showed another instance of this happening, it’s time to take a look at Cruz’s case. In 55 games at AAA in 2022, Cruz recorded a K% of 22.7%. This overall isn’t that crazy considering Oneil’s strikeout numbers float around the 20-26% mark throughout his MiLB career. After Oneil’s call-up in 2023 for 87 games, Cruz’s K% jumped a whopping 12.2%, posting a K% of 34.9%. This increase also happened to Aaron Judge as we touched on above. Given these strikeout percentage increases, we can see how the theory of the full strike zone is in full effect when it comes to the Pirates’ slugger. We also have to keep in mind that with MLB umpires being far from perfect, their misses are potentially even worse than previous misses by MiLB umpires given the full strike zone. Some of the videos below represent instances of calls that may not have been called strikes in the MiLB.

More Evidence

More proof of Cruz finally getting his true strike zone called on him is the fact that Cruz struck out looking 20 times in the bottom half of the strike zone. Most of these strikeouts were also recorded on the line of the strike zone as well, generally being considered borderline calls. With the inconsistencies of many MLB and MiLB umpires, it’s fair to say that these calls on the black may not have been called in his time in the minors.

Some other data that supports this theory are some of Oneil’s zone graphs. The graphs below all represent where Cruz gets pitched the most and where he strikes out the most. These numbers present that potentially opposing pitchers have caught on to the fact that Cruz gets a lot of called strikes and strikeouts in the bottom of the zone. The increase in pitches in the bottom of the zone is just more proof of the Aaron Judge bug being caught by Cruz.

Devil’s Advocate

Of course, this would not be a complete examination of the theory if we didn’t examine other possibilities for the jump in K% numbers. The main possibility is of course the difference in competition. This would also explain Oneil’s slow start after being recalled in 2022. Though, I do not think this is a correct other reason due to how much better Cruz got in the last month of the season. In September and the beginning of October, Cruz hit his most home runs in a month yet with 6, posted 19 RBI, and hit .288. Although it’s difficult to judge his month fully, it’s easy to see how he improved with these numbers alone as this was his best month yet. Below is a laser shot Cruz hit in September.

Can the Judge bug be cured?

In my opinion, the Judge bug is a temporary issue for Oneil Cruz. Some evidence we have to support this is that after Aaron Judge got more time under his belt in the big leagues, he returned to a strikeout rate at or slightly above 25%. This is around Judge’s former MiLB rates as well, showing a return to normalcy. Given this, I have no doubt that Oneil Cruz will do the same exact thing. As time progresses, Cruz should get more and more experience under his belt with his new strike zone, and with that he should start to bring his strikeout numbers back down to his MiLB level, if not better. Hopefully time and experience working with big-league hitting coaches will help as well. I have a lot of faith in the power-hitting short stop, and with that comes no doubt in my mind that Cruz won’t figure it out and continue on his path to be baseball’s next MLB shortstop superstar.