Move over, Giancarlo Stanton. There’s a new exit velocity king.
Listed as 6’7″ at 210lbs, Pirates rookie shortstop Oneil Cruz is an absolute beast of a human being, who puts his body to work with some of the loudest tools in the game (70-grade raw game power, 80-grade raw power according to FanGraphs).
And on Wednesday afternoon, he set a new Statcast record for the hardest hit ball ever recorded (data goes back to 2015).
122.4 MPH! Oh my WORD! He hit it so hard, and it bounced back off the right field wall so quickly, it turned into only a single for Cruz.
Before today, there were only 13 balls hit over 120 MPH, all but one of which belonged to Giancarlo Stanton. But now there’s 14, and the top of the list belongs to Oneil Cruz.
Cruz isn’t hitting all that well for the season, but with his frame and skillset (and prospect pedigree), it’s just a matter of time. What a beast.