Nelson Cruz: A Late Bloomer Exceeds Expectations
Nelson Cruz leads both leagues in home runs, and he ranks second behind Bryce Harper in SLG. Neither is a surprise. The Seattle slugger left the yard 40 times with Baltimore last season, and moving to Safeco Field wasn’t going to squelch his production. Per ESPN Home Run Tracker, 22 of the 34 bombs he’s hit this year have traveled more than 400 feet. Nine of them have gone at least 440 feet.
One thing has come as a surprise: Going into last night, the career .274 hitter had a .324 batting average, and he was tied with Prince Fielder for the most base hits (140) in either league. Once one-dimensional, the former Texas Ranger has morphed into more than just a basher.
It’s been a long process. In many respects, Cruz has been a late bloomer.
The 35-year-old outfielder has 231 home runs on his big-league resume – plus 16 in 41 post-season games – and the vast majority have come in the past seven seasons. Cruz actually had more minor-league home runs (172) than MLB home runs (157) going into last year. Some of that was opportunity, but much of it was developmental in nature. Initially given shots in 2006 and 2007, he failed to stick due to a lot of swing-and-miss.
Cruz credits a pair of former mentors in the Rangers organization for a key mechanical adjustment he made in 2007. The tweak helped springboard him to a monster 2008 season that was split between Triple-A (37 home runs) and Texas (seven home runs in 115 at bats).
“My stance had been more straight in line, and we made it kind of open,” Cruz said. “Scott Servais (the Rangers farm director at the time) told me to change it. (Triple-A hitting coach) Paul Boulanger said the same thing. They sent me back to the minors and showed me some film. We looked at Carlos Lee, Derek Lee, Andres Galarraga – guys who had similarities to me. They’re bigger guys, taller guys, and they were kind of open.”
Cruz says opening up his stance helped his pitch recognition, which in turn helped his plate coverage. There’s still swing-and-miss to his game – he’s a classic power hitter in that sense – but he’s become proficient at punishing misplaced pitches.
“Because I’m open, I can see the ball with both eyes, instead of just the left one,” Cruz said. “That gives me a better chance to see the spin of the ball. I had success before I changed my stance, but that was in the minors. I realized once I got to the big leagues that I needed to do something in order to cover more pitches.”
(Cruz has seen an optometrist and knows he’s more dominant in one eye, but he couldn’t remember which one it is.)
He doesn’t watch much video of himself. Cruz told me he’ll look at it when he’s scuffling. “Maybe if I’m getting under the ball a lot” – but not when he’s hot. “You don’t want to mess things up,” he said. “All you want is to focus and to see the ball and hit the ball.”
As simple as that sounds, his approach isn’t rudimentary. You don’t put up a 324/.389/.609 slash line without a mature thought process.
“You need to have a plan every time you go up to bat,” Cruz said. “Know the situations and have an idea of what the pitcher wants to do against you. That’s the most important thing for me. Each at bat is different. You don’t change the way you hit, but you can change the way you approach an at bat. That’s another thing I’ve learned over the years.”
Cruz told me he hasn’t changed anything of late. He suggested that maybe his hands are a little higher, but then again, maybe they’re a little lower. He’s not really sure. Any difference would be minimal and “kind of depending on how I feel at the time.”
He’s certainly feeling it in his first season in Seattle. Despite moving from a hitter-friendly ballpark to one that’s known for suppressing home runs, he’s having a career year. Older and wiser, he’s letting his power play out naturally.
“If I hit it good, it’s going to go out anywhere,” Cruz said. “I don’t see any reason to change.”
That’s the last thing Mariners fans want to see. Their team has been a huge disappointment, but the player general manager Jack Zduriencik inked to a $57 million contract has been anything but. Many thought Cruz couldn’t replicate what he did last year – yes, there are three more years left on the deal — but to this point he’s exceeded expectations. Cruz has been a beast with the bat.
David Laurila grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and now writes about baseball from his home in Cambridge, Mass. He authored the Prospectus Q&A series at Baseball Prospectus from December 2006-May 2011 before being claimed off waivers by FanGraphs. He can be followed on Twitter @DavidLaurilaQA.
To a Mariners fan he’s been the best part of a very disappointing year. It doesn’t hurt that he’s also very humble and personable and better in the outfield than we expected.
16.8 Runs below average isn’t exactly doing well in the outfield.
Thats positionally adjusted. He has been bad but he could still likely be an average lf.
Unless your point of comparison is Michael Morse, who lumbered around that same field not that long ago.
Yeah, I don’t think you’ll find many Mariner fans who have a lot of good to say about his defense. Maybe it’s not as bad as the defensive metrics portray (or maybe it is, because they seem to be right on by what I’ve seen), but you’d be hard pressed to say it’s even been decent for an outfielder. Best to say that he’s been a terrific player despite his poor defensive play.
He just said better than we expected. No need to put words in anyone’s mouth. Fangraphs wordsmith police.
He’s no Hanley.
I’d like to thank my mentors, Hugh G. Hefner and Anna Bolic.
There were a lot of late-bloomers in the late 90s and early 2000s. Cruz is continuing that honored tradition in humble and personable fashion.
Were the dire projections for Cruz prior to 2014 based on his age? Something else about his profile? Some combination? What went wrong there?
I think it was a combination of speculation about how he’d come back from a steroids suspension, and the fact that he’s a poor defender, which limits his real life value.
He also went public at the end of the 2013 season with some ridiculous contract demands, which prompted a lot of ‘you’re not worth what you’re asking for’ coverage.
But presumably the projections on here would not factor in his contract demands and his suspension. And it’s not like improved defense explains any of his rebound.
And maybe his contract demands weren’t all that ridiculous, as it turns out.
Yeah, not sure what the projections were, just speaking to the general negativity around Cruz after 2013.
And his contract demands did turn out to be ridiculous – he was asking for 4yr/$75 million, and a 40 HR campaign later he got 4yr/$58 million from the Mariners.
How did his contract demands turn out to be ridiculous? If some team had actually signed him to the rumored 5/75 deal, it would look like a steal right now.
Because he’s seen primarily as a DH, and most teams don’t want to give those years and/or money to a DH only player approaching his mid 30’s. Going forward, whether at 33 or 35, the word “decline” will be brought up in any Nelson Cruz conversation. That’s my guess. Enjoy the ride for now.
I really was going to do the snarky steroid post, but the four years prior to 2012, when he claims to have taken steroids (troches) after battling a gastrointestinal bug:
2008-2012:128 wRC+ 18.6% HR/FB, 19.1/46.6/34.3 Soft%/Med%/Hard%
2012-2015: 134 wRC+ 19.9% HR/FB, 13.8/49.0/37.2 Soft%/Med%/Hard%
I’m sure there’s an argument for him doping long before, but if it was one time use, it wasn’t what created him.
I thought there were studies somewhere showing that athletes got benefits for years afterward, after stopping PEDs. Specifically baseball players.
Either way, either his doping from before is paying dividends now or he’s on it again and for some weird reason he hasn’t been tested for it yet. No one defies the aging curve of a hitter the way that he has, not without a little chemical help.
No one? You should probably brush up on your baseball history.
Literally no one ever in any way has defied The Great Aging Curve in such a fashion. Only peasantfolk don’t accept that.
Studies on PEDs? You sure? Who told you so? Tom Verducci?
Fun and interesting article. Some requests for a more analytical article to follow answering the things unsaid, like: Why was he a late bloomer? “Swing and miss problems” don’t keep down anyone in today’s game, maybe examine what a shame it is that kept Cruz down longer than it would today? Dust off the elephant in the room of his steroid suspension, put it all together perhaps Cruz can be seen as a player that highlights the differences and bridges the steroid era and today?… Also his BABIP, oof, perhaps imagine what he’d be minus 70pts of inflated average in that slash line? Wonder how his HR/FB% is a career high when hard%, pull%, FB% give no help… And that aging curve, it’s been a couple years since J.Zimmerman showed it’s changing, is Cruz more evidence or a weird aberration? etc.
Cruz owns the maximum stillness possible in his swing. He’s reaping all the advantages of that while avoiding the pitfalls, which are a loss of power and jumping at the pitch because there are no trigger mechanisms. Paul Molitor developed similar philosophies late in his career and it worked for him. He hit 341 390 468 at the age of forty.
Interesting piece. Certainly much of Cruz’s success is attributable to hard work and constant adjustments. However, I think that when an author chooses to examine the prolonged success of a known steroid user, that steroid user’s previous suspension should at least be acknowledged. This is kind of like an article describing the rise of ISIS without mentioning the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Coming into this season, as an M’s fan I was paranoid that an otherwise good team would be hamstrung by collapse by Cruz. Oh how cruel the baseball Gods are. Of course, the complete opposite has occurred.
Looking at his contract, he’s already been worth $34 million this year, with a good shot of breaking $40 million. Which would mean that over the remaining 3 years he would only need to accrue about 2 WAR to justify the contract. So even if the last two years are ugly, pretty good shot this ends up being a great contract.
Now if something could be done about Cano’s contract…
Yeah, it might not feel like a great deal if he plays super when the team sucks if the Mariners improve in later years and he turns into a pumpkin, but you can’t predict when teams will severely underperform.