What's wrong with this guy -- O'Neil Cruz

[rink23]

Playing the 2025 season of the St. Louis Cardinals, still using OOTP 24 until I wrap up the current campaign, and just after the All-Star break I acquired third baseman O'Neil Cruz from the San Diego Padres.
Nolan Arenado had just suffered an injury which will keep him out into September.
Cruz came to the Cardinals off of having had played in the All-Star Game and is the owner of the ranking of No. 1 third baseman in MLB.
It started off great. He homered in his initial at-bat.
After that, it's been a crap show.
In 18 games, he his hitting .119, .221 OBP, .224, slug, with the one home run and five RBIs.
He is striking out at a 32.5 percent clip, 25 times in 77 plate appearances.
For San Diego, in 95 games, he had hit .278, .337 OBP, .487 slug, with 18 home runs and 48 RBIs.
He struck out at a 26.6 clip, 102 times in 384 at bats.
His morale doesn't seem to be an issue. No mad faces.
Is there anything I can do to wake this guy up?

[x McLovin x]

Originally Posted by rink23

Playing the 2025 season of the St. Louis Cardinals, still using OOTP 24 until I wrap up the current campaign, and just after the All-Star break I acquired third baseman O'Neil Cruz from the San Diego Padres.
Nolan Arenado had just suffered an injury which will keep him out into September.
Cruz came to the Cardinals off of having had played in the All-Star Game and is the owner of the ranking of No. 1 third baseman in MLB.
It started off great. He homered in his initial at-bat.
After that, it's been a crap show.
In 18 games, he his hitting .119, .221 OBP, .224, slug, with the one home run and five RBIs.
He is striking out at a 32.5 percent clip, 25 times in 77 plate appearances.
For San Diego, in 95 games, he had hit .278, .337 OBP, .487 slug, with 18 home runs and 48 RBIs.
He struck out at a 26.6 clip, 102 times in 384 at bats.
His morale doesn't seem to be an issue. No mad faces.
Is there anything I can do to wake this guy up?

Let me get this straight - you have a good player who has performed poorly in an extremely small sample of 77 plate appearances (roughly less than 13% of the player's plate appearances for the year) and you think that it might be an issue with the game? Not sure if you've followed MLB for long, so apologies if you haven't, but even the best players in baseball can have a 77 plate appearance slump. Heck, even Derek Jeter went 0 for 32 at a point in his career and most would agree his career played out pretty nicely.

Plus, there are plenty of young players that can have some down years in the beginnings of their careers (development is not always linear) - to provide a real-world example, see Gleyber Torres' career with the Yankees. If you look at his 2018-2019 (his age 21-22 seasons), you would assume he was on a potential hall of fame trajectory (especially since he was still playing Shortstop at the time which obviously has a much lower bar for offense). Then take a look at his 2020-2021 seasons wherein he had comparatively "poor" seasons (107 WRC+/0.4 WAR in 2020 albeit in a short season and 96 WRC+/1.3 WAR in 2021 per Fangraphs). Fast forward to 2022-Present and he looks like he's in position to be putting up a career year at the ripe age of 27 (FYI, this is also his free-agent season).

Let's say in your sim, in your current season, Cruz has a season similar to Gleyber's 2021 season but then otherwise bounces back to a "normal" or "expected" statistical trajectory (similar to Gleyber's current track). Would you sign up for that?

[mrpoopistan]

18 games isn;t enough to judge.

One thing OOTP does better than anything else on the planet is simulate slumps and other stochastic trends.

Just to pick an IRL example, the Padres acquired Adam Frazier from the Pirates. Frazier was at the time widely regarded as a good contact hitter who'll surprise with some pop occasionally but not often. Up to the trade, Frazier had hit an .836 OPS, which is at the high-high end of his career performance. Not unbelievable, but at the edge of what you could ever expect. He proceeded to hit .662 for the Padres over 57 games.

[locuspc]

He has a last name where his first name should be.

[x McLovin x]

Originally Posted by locuspc

He has a last name where his first name should be.

Fun fact: Cruz’s dad, Rafael, - a former minor league infielder - named his son after the great Yankee Paul O’Neill whom he idolized.

[x McLovin x]

Originally Posted by mrpoopistan

18 games isn;t enough to judge.

One thing OOTP does better than anything else on the planet is simulate slumps and other stochastic trends.

Just to pick an IRL example, the Padres acquired Adam Frazier from the Pirates. Frazier was at the time widely regarded as a good contact hitter who'll surprise with some pop occasionally but not often. Up to the trade, Frazier had hit an .836 OPS, which is at the high-high end of his career performance. Not unbelievable, but at the edge of what you could ever expect. He proceeded to hit .662 for the Padres over 57 games.

Bingo. In a small enough sample, good players can look bad and bad players can look good.

[swampdragon]

The ratings look good, but I see that the scouting accuracy is low. So you can't count on either the ratings or the small sample size. It's very likely that he will get better, but I sure wouldn't bet on his performing up to that 65 rating.

[OutS|der]

Oh no 18 games in a 162 game season. Nobody good ever has a bad 18 game stretch.

[tcblcommish]

Did everyone who responded actually read what the OP wrote? It says no where that there is something wrong with the game, he simply asked how to wake this guy up. Jesus, people need to stop white knighting the game when it isn't needed.

To the OP, when I get a slump like this, sometimes a day of with maybe a pinch hit appearance or a different spot in the order. There really isn't much you can do with a slump other than ride it out. Sometimes it's just that, a big slump and he will snap out of it and then go on a tear though sadly, he could also just struggle for the rest of the season, who knows. Just like real life

Sent from my SM-G998W using Tapatalk

[mrpoopistan]

Originally Posted by x McLovin x

Bingo. In a small enough sample, good players can look bad and bad players can look good.

That's why I picked the Adam Frazier example. (Also, I'm a Pirates fan so the Cruz reference easily primed me.) Frazier is an example of a player who by any measure has had a respectable career. His defensive versatility and aptitude are mostly what's keeping him in MLB now since he's a 2B who'll play a serviceable CF or corner OF in a pinch.


By any meaningful standard, Frazier was never a bad player. Even now on the wrong side of the aging curve, he's a serviceable defensive utility man. But you can look at his career and see a million times that he overachieved. He literally didn't hit a HR in college (https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/player/163500/) but he hit 10 HRs twice in MLB. Thanks to his defense, he still posts positive fWAR.


But you can definitely see the split in his trade year between his Pirates performance and his Padres performance.


I'd also note that PNC is a good park for leftie batters who can pull the ball over the Clemente wall. IRL, this will be a notable advantage for Cruz. It already is an advantage for Jack Suwinski.


Point being? There are a lot of distorting factors in MLB slash lines. That's why you have to play 162 games to get at something like a player's and team's true value.

[mrpoopistan]

Originally Posted by tcblcommish

It says no where that there is something wrong with the game, he simply asked how to wake this guy up.

Our point is that it's a SSS. He needs to let it play out rather than reading anything into it.

[actionjackson]

Just keep pluggin' him in there. It'll turn. It might not if he's being messed up by the player development system. IRL, he's an absolute freak of nature physical specimen. 6'7", 215 lbs, throws 100 MPH from SS, with lots of pop, so he's really toolsy. I'd compare him to Elly De La Cruz. Same tool set, but Elly has way more speed, and an incredible ability to steal bases. Two of the most exciting young players in the game, in the same division. Oneil has three years on him (25 to 22), and about a year's worth of service time, so there are exciting times ahead for the NL Central, where your favourite team resides. He should be good for you, when he comes out of this funk.

[rink23]

I guess the wake up the slumping Cruz was to post about it on this board.
The next four games after making the post he went 8 for 16 with four doubles and four RBIs.

[mrpoopistan]

Originally Posted by rink23

I guess the wake up the slumping Cruz was to post about it on this board.
The next four games after making the post he went 8 for 16 with four doubles and four RBIs.

Time heals all wounds.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by rink23

I guess the wake up the slumping Cruz was to post about it on this board.
The next four games after making the post he went 8 for 16 with four doubles and four RBIs.

Atta boy Oneil!!!