Former Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman and now current Spanish-language radio broadcast analyst Luis Cruz had a brief but eventful five-year MLB career that spanned 195 games.
Of those 195 games in the Majors, 123 of them were with the Dodgers from 2012-2013. It was a short-lived but impactful stint that left its mark on the Dodgers fanbase from that time.
Cruz was designated for assignment 45 games into 2013 and played 16 games with the New York Yankees that season before being DFA’d one final time.
After that he made the transition overseas to play baseball in the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB). He stayed in Japan from 2014-2017, playing for the Chiba Lotte Marines, Yomiuri Giants, and Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.
It was in that first season in Japan where Cruz was first exposed to Shohei Ohtani as an opponent when the his Marines took on the Ohtani’s Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Despite that firsthand experience, he could never have imagined the type of player that Ohtani has grown into, according to Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times:
“I didn’t expect him to be this good as a hitter,” Cruz said in a phone interview.
Ohtani was certainly very good at the plate during his NPB career, batting .286/.358/.501 over five seasons, but he was nowhere near the complete player he is today, with 48 home runs in those five seasons and never hitting more than 22 in a season.
It was a mark he immediately matched during his first season with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018, and Ohtani has hit at least 44 home runs in three of his seven seasons in the Majors.
While it took Ohtani some time to grow into his frame, the hand-eye talent with the bat in his hands has always been there:
The teenage version of Ohtani whom Cruz first encountered was considerably lankier than the 30-year-old version of Ohtani who is on track to win his third most valuable player award, but Cruz said that even then, his batting practice was “incredible.”
“He hit it wherever he wanted,” Cruz said. “His bat was like a whip, sort of like Ichiro’s.”
Now Cruz has a chance to call Ohtani’s games with his new role in the Dodgers’ organization, where he can appreciate the continued development of MLB’s most talented superstar.
Luis Cruz’s stint a cult classic among Dodgers fans
Cruz joined the Dodgers in 2011 on a minor league contract. He spent that entire season with the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes after failing to make the Opening Day roster.
He burst onto the scene in 2012 after receiving a midseason call-up, and quickly became a fan favorite. Hitting .297/.322/.431 with six home runs and 40 RBI in 78 games was the main reason for that, but the fact that he was from Sonora, Mexico didn’t hurt either.
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