Oneil Cruz, a Dominican professional baseball shortstop and third baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball, was born on October 4, 1998. (MLB). In 2021, he made his MLB debut.
Cruz signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in July 2015 as an international free agent for a $950,000 signing bonus. Cruz made his professional debut in 2016 with DSL Dodgers 1, batting .294 with 23 RBIs in 55 games. He began the 2017 season with the Great Lakes Loons.
On July 31, 2017, the Dodgers traded Cruz and Angel German to the Pirates in exchange for Tony Watson. He was then assigned to the West Virginia Power. In 105 games between the two clubs, he slashed .237/.297/.350 with ten home runs and 44 RBIs.
On September 22, 2020, Cruz was involved in a deadly vehicle crash in the Dominican Republic in which three people were killed. The accident occurred when his Jeep collided with a motorcycle carrying the three deceased that was traveling with no lights in the same direction that Cruz was traveling. Cruz survived the fatal accident without serious injury.
Cruz, the son of retired Nippon Professional Baseball player Rafael Cruz, is unusually tall for a shortstop. He is listed as 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) and 175 pounds (79 kg).
The only taller major league shortstop was 6-foot-7-inch (2.01 m) Joel Guzmán, who played nine innings for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2007. There have been three 6-foot-5-inch (1.96 m) major-leaguers who started some games at shortstop: Archi Cianfrocco, Troy Glaus, and Michael Morse.
Oneil Cruz does not have any children at this moment, as a young prospect, he is focusing on his career at the Pittsburgh Pirates