Pirates rookie Oneil Cruz hits hardest ball ever measured by MLB's Statcast

Pittsburgh Pirates rookie Oneil Cruz already held a unique spot in baseball history as the tallest shortstop the game has seen at 6-foot-7. Now he holds yet another esoteric title.

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The gargantuan shortstop set an MLB record on Wednesday by hitting the hardest ball ever measured by the league's Statcast ball-tracking system, which goes back to 2015. Facing Kyle Wright of the Atlanta Braves, Cruz hit a screaming liner to the right field wall that bounced so hard he only managed a single.

The measured velocity on the hit: 122.4 mph. Had the ball been hit with a few more degrees of launch angle, it would be at the bottom of the Allegheny River right now.

Even in slow-motion, the ball is hard to track. According to the Pirates broadcast, the ball traveled from Cruz's bat to the wall in only 3.27 seconds.

Yes, the ball was only a single in a game the last-place Pirates would lose 14-2, so the hit was basically meaningless on a results basis. But when taken with all the hype that has surrounded Cruz since his debut, you can see why there's a potential superstar playing shortstop in Pittsburgh.

Oneil Cruz hits the ball very, very hard

Since MLB introduced exit velocity as something to pay attention to, the metric has been dominated by two teammates: New York Yankees outfielders Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge.

MLB might be a collection of the best hitters in the world, but certain players can stand out far ahead even in the elite rungs when it comes to hitting the ball hard. Basically, those two Yankees sluggers are the only MLB players capable of regularly hitting a ball faster than 118 mph.

Stanton in particular stands out, dominating the leaderboard of the hardest balls ever tracked by Statcast. Or dominated, we should say, as that leaderboard now has a new name at the top.

The record shows that Cruz is the new entrant in the small circle of MLB's exit velocity freaks, and that status obviously correlates with raw power. That's not the only physical trait where Cruz is elite either, as he also ranks in MLB's top 10 in average spring speed at 30.2 feet per second and made the hardest infield throw of the year in his MLB debut.

Basically, Cruz can hit the ball harder than anybody, run faster than anyone on his team, throw harder than any infielder and is taller than anyone who has ever played his position. He may be the biggest physical freak MLB has seen in years this side of Shohei Ohtani.

Cruz entered the season as the No. 14 prospect in MLB as ranked by Baseball America and is hitting .199/.249/.398 with 10 homers and 30 RBI in 52 games. A brutal 38.5 percent strikeout rate has held him back at the plate, but he still has plenty of time to improve at only 23 years old.

With that kind of ceiling available, the Pirates are going to give him all the time he needs.