In the early hours of September 21, 2020, Oneil Cruz rear-ended a motorcycle on the Carretera Sánchez highway in the Peravia province of the Dominican Republic. The three people riding that motorcycle — Yohan Saba Mercado (20), Deby Beato Charles (20), and Daniela Pérez García (19) — all died. The local prosecutor’s office determined that Cruz had consumed alcohol before the crash and requested coercive measures. The charges never went anywhere. On September 10, 2026, ProPublica published the investigation that explains why.
What ProPublica Found: The Fixer, the Families, and the $66,000
Reporter Gus Garcia-Roberts interviewed more than thirty people in the Dominican Republic and obtained hundreds of pages of documents — voice notes, bank receipts, court records — to reconstruct how the case was closed.
At the center of the story is a man named Santo Caraballo, described by ProPublica as a money lender: someone who advances cash to Dominican prospects in exchange for a future percentage of their MLB earnings. According to the investigation, Caraballo coordinated payments to the three victims’ families totaling approximately $66,000.
The Dominican legal system gives victims’ families significant weight in determining whether criminal prosecution moves forward. The families withdrew their complaints. The case was closed. Cruz attended his next hearing, on August 30, 2021, virtually from the United States, where he was playing for the Altoona Curve in the Pirates‘ minor league system.
One distinction worth making clearly: ProPublica does not establish whether it was Cruz personally or people around him who coordinated the payments with Caraballo. Some outlets — TMZ, Sports Illustrated — attribute the arrangement directly to Cruz; Defector and BroBible say it was «Cruz’s family.» The original ProPublica investigation is the primary source; anything beyond what it documents is speculation.
The Pirates’ Response and MLB’s Silence
The Pittsburgh Pirates publicly stated the matter was «addressed more than six years ago.» Cruz’s attorney called it «a legally binding resolution.» But what ProPublica documents is not an acquittal: the charges disappeared because the families withdrew them, not because a court found Cruz innocent. The Dominican system allows for that — it doesn’t make it a verdict on the merits.
Early 2020 reports from some Dominican outlets and MLB summaries noted that the motorcycle lacked proper lighting, an argument used to spread the blame. The prosecutor’s office, however, determined that Cruz had been drinking and was driving at high speed at the time of impact. The motorcycle’s lighting didn’t make the charges go away. The payments did.
As of September 12, 2026, MLB has not issued any statement on whether it will open a formal investigation. Cruz has never been suspended. In January 2026, he signed a one-year, $3.3 million deal with Pittsburgh, avoiding arbitration.
The Bigger Picture: ProPublica’s Parallel Investigation
The Cruz case isn’t just the story of one ballplayer. It’s also a window into how Dominican baseball operates in the shadows. ProPublica simultaneously published a companion investigation titled «The Dominican Baseball Factory,» exposing how money lenders exploit the prospect pipeline before players ever reach the majors. According to ProPublica, Caraballo built his influence in that world largely off the back of his involvement in the Cruz case. The crash also happened during the COVID-19 curfew, adding yet another legal violation to that night’s record.
The Numbers Behind the Player
Today, at 27, Oneil Cruz is the Pirates’ starting center fielder and having one of his best seasons. His average exit velocity sits at 94.9 mph, placing him in the 100th percentile of all of MLB per Statcast — literally the hardest contact in the league. The stats have nothing to do with what happened on the Carretera Sánchez. But it’s impossible to ignore that the guy hitting like this at 27 is the same 21-year-old prospect who never stood trial.
Here’s what Statcast shows for Cruz’s 2026 season:
- 370 plate appearances
- 18 home runs and 63 RBI
- AVG: .277
- OPS: .851
- xwOBA: .356
- Average exit velocity: 94.9 mph
- Barrel rate: 16.7%
- Hard-hit rate: 55%
And where he ranks league-wide:
- xwOBA: 88th percentile
- Exit velocity: 100th percentile (elite)
- Barrel %: 98th percentile (elite)
- Hard-hit %: 98th percentile (elite)
- Contact / whiff rate: 2nd percentile (one of the highest whiff rates in MLB)
The numbers explain why Cruz hits the ball as hard as anyone alive. They don’t explain — and can’t erase — what happened in the Dominican Republic in 2020.
