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Elly De La Cruz of Cincinnati Reds Sits at Top of Charts in New Base Stealing Metric

Statcast has finally devised a way to measure base stealing skills, and Elly De La Cruz of the Reds is the leader in 2025.

Brady Farkas

Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz (44) during the sixth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Sept 29.
Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz (44) during the sixth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Sept 29. / Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images
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On Monday, Statcast revealed new baserunning data that fans and teams will have access to. In this first iteration of data, Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz was named the most aggressive base stealer of 2024.

Per David Adler of MLB.com:

See, De La Cruz led the Major Leagues in both stolen bases and caught stealings. But the positive value of all his steals easily outweighed the negative of him being caught.

De La Cruz's successful advances -- via stolen bases and balks -- were worth +50 bases gained vs. average. His outs made on the bases -- via caught stealings and pickoffs -- were worth -10. The net gain, +40, was good enough to put him atop the leaderboard by a significant margin.

It's still a little unclear how all this works, considering that De La Cruz actually stole 67 bases on the year, but it's good to see that his aggressiveness is looked positively upon. One of the most exciting players in the game, De La Cruz took a big jump in 2024, stealing all those bags while also hitting 25 homers.

He continued to improve his contact rate as well, hitting .259 and posting a .339 on-base percentage.

If the Reds are going to take the next step in the National League Central, they are going to need another big year from De La Cruz. He'll pair with Matt McLain, Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand to make up one of the best young cores in the entire sport.

The Reds also have a new manager this year in future Hall of Famer Terry Francona.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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