The Pirates traded Kevin Newman a couple days ago, so for the time being there's little chance of the Pirates getting frustrated with Cruz and reaching for the safe but inadequate veteran. Of course, this being the Pirates they'll probably sign a Newman clone for half the money in February.

I think I could easily win an argument against Oneil Cruz.

They make a firm argument against owning him in yearly fantasy leagues but not that he isn't a fine prospect for the real world or in keeper leagues, especially sim ones.

I think I could easily win an argument against Oneil Cruz.

Does he have a bat handy cuz record exit velocity wins a lot of arguments.

You guys have it wrong, it is an argument how Onan Cruise does not exist. You can say he does but is he their in the room with you Al. Refuel that 1 if you will.

I'm surprised they're this bearish on a guy with freakish tools who hits the ball harder than just about anyone else in MLB and who just finished his age-23 season, and seemed to be making adjustments as the year progressed.

So he hits a lot of ground balls... he also hit 17 homers in just over half a season.

Did he make adjustmets or did he just have a hot Sept? He did start walking in Aug and he managed to get the K-rate down to 30% in Sept. But Sept was largely fueled by a 384 BABIP. From a fantasy perspective, the HRs and steals will be nice, the BA not so much.

It’s a pretty narrow fantasy baseball argument

I find the stat cast data as interesting as the next guy but isn't there a lot of the same arguments against that were against scouts back in the day. Oneill Cruz hits the ball hard, great, he also strikes out over a third of the time. Maybe he'll get it together but he looks like Yoan Moncada to me. That's not awful but it's not anything worth paying attention to either.