During Wednesday afternoon’s spring training loss down in Florida to the Atlanta Braves, Pirates center fielder Oneil Cruz badly misread an outfield hit by Drake Baldwin.
As video shows, he overruns the fly ball by about ten feet as it drops near the wall, allowing Baldwin to get all the way to third base.
It’s not a great look for a major league outfielder, but I’m not here to suggest that this play is an indication of how Cruz will play in the outfield this year. It’s the first week of spring training, everyone deserves some slack.
However, it did raise some interesting discussions about what level of defense the Pirates need to see in the outfield, particularly for a team that sacrificed some of their defensive mindset to acquire desperately needed bats.
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