It has been another grim season for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It's far to feel good about the direction of this team, despite a few genuine up-and-coming stars on the roster. Paul Skenes, Bubba Chandler and Jared Jones has the potential to be MLB's best three-man pitching run in a few years. Oneil Cruz is a beast. And yet, the team is 19 games below .500 and the offense is impotent.
What makes this so aggravating is that Pittsburgh won't use this as a jumping off point. Skenes is the best pitcher in baseball right now. His presence alone would be enough motivation for most front offices to get aggressive. Not Pittsburgh's though. Ben Cherington will continue to sell off quality, controllable talent. Bob Nutting will continue pinching every penny in sight. That is the pattern in Pittsburgh, and it's what brings us to the most troubling rumor yet.
The Pirates front office has received "many calls" on Oneil Cruz, per Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
"Sources told the Post-Gazette the Pirates have received many calls on Cruz, who boasts three years of remaining club control after 2025 and is arbitration eligible starting next season," he writes. "It’s worth noting the Pirates are not actively shopping Cruz but are listening to what other teams are willing to offer. There have been no teams connected to Cruz as of the time of this writing."
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Pirates listening to trade offers for Oneil Cruz with deadline coming up
This will naturally set off alarm bells in Pittsburgh. The Pirates fanbase is already fed up with the current ownership group and front office. There's a reason attendance is so sparse at the most beautiful ballpark in MLB. It's not because Pirates fans don't love their team. It's because the team has done nothing to convince fans that winning is a priority.
It has been difficult to identify bright spots with this Pirates roster. If there's hope, it exists in the idea that Pittsburgh can eventually field enough quality bats to hold leads for a potentially dominant rotation. Skenes is going to win multiple Cy Young awards at his current pace. The aforementioned Chandler's big-league debut is probably slated for next season at the latest. Jones should get back to full strength. If Mitch Keller sticks around, woof.
But none of that matters if Pittsburgh undermines its only credible path to relevance by trading their best bat — a 26-year-old outlier athlete in Cruz, who is under team control through 2028 and carries MVP potential if he can unlock certain elements of his hitting profile.
Pirates can't accept anything short of godfather offer for Oneil Cruz
Cruz is not perfect. He strikes out too damn much. But that's a small nit to pick in an otherwise promising statistical profile. He's in the 100th percentile for bat speed and average exit velocity, per Baseball Savant. For barrel rate, which essentially measures the quality of each hit, Cruz ranks in the 99th percentile. Same for hard contact.
He draws walks. He leads MLB in stolen bases with 31 as of this writing. Once a weakness in the field at shortstop, Cruz has developed into an above-average centerfielder, in the 100th percentile for arm strength and well above average in terms of range, qualified as outs above average (two).
That's a lot of random stats and percentiles, but it's telling of just how absurd Cruz is. He's a 6-foot-7, 240-pound superhuman with elite speed and instincts on the diamond and remarkable power behind his swing. He needs to get more consistent, but the ceiling is the sky. It's outer space. Cruz has the chance to become one of the best players of his generation with a few small areas of growth.
If the Pirates trade him right now, when he's 26 and years away from free agency, the fanbase will revolt. It will be all the proof fans need that Pittsburgh does not plan on building a contender around Paul Skenes. Not now, not ever. It may be the ammo Skenes needs to start thinking about his next destination well before he reaches free agency.