Cincinnati Reds Have Budding Superstar in Elly De La Cruz

De La Cruz has all the tools to be a star for the Reds

The Cincinnati Reds have a budding superstar in Elly De La Cruz. That designation would seem to surprise some in Reds country. If that’s you, shame on you.

De La Cruz showed off his three 70-grade skills quite a few times last year. Baseball America rated his power, speed, and arm as a 70 on the 20-80 scale. He was just the third player since 1901 to hit for the cycle in his first 15 career MLB games. He was the youngest to do it since a 20-year old Cesar Cedeno accomplished the feat in 1972. 

De La Cruz stole second, third, and home plate in the span of two pitches against the Milwaukee Brewers. He has all the hard hit records for the club and he hasn’t even played a full season.

Yet there are some who would question his hold on, not only a starting job, but a spot in the big leagues. This is nonsense. Baseball is a majestic sport for its myriad of stats. You can make just about any argument you want about a player by singling out specific stats. That is what some are trying to do with De La Cruz by harping on his batting average and strikeout percentage. I can do that, too.

Few rookies hit the ball harder than De La Cruz. In fact, only two rookies with enough at-bats to qualify had a higher average exit velocity that his 91.2. That number was also the same as stars by the name of Francisco Lindor and Max Muncy. Only two players in all of Major League Baseball had a harder hit ball than him last year. Ronald Acuna Jr. hit one 121.2 MPH and Giancarlo Stanton hit one 119.5 MPH. De La Cruz hit one 119.2 MPH.

No one runs faster than De La Cruz. His 30.5 feet per second is matched by only Bobby Witt Jr. from the Kansas City Royals, and surpassed by no one. He is first and fourth in fastest 90-foot splits. As a lefty, he is the fastest in the big leagues and as a righty he is fourth.

No infielder had a stronger arm. De La Cruz’s 95.9 MPH average of the top 5% of his throws was at least three MPH faster than every other infielder in MLB last year.

You cannot deny that few are more talented than him.

Plus, as Charlie Goldsmith reports, De La Cruz has spent the offseason with a vigorous routine in order to improve his game. 

He spent time with New York Yankees outfielder Juan Soto learning how to build a routine around improvement. He also had regular check-ins with Reds manager David Bell and bench coach Freddie Benavides on how he was handling his day-to-day through the offseason. It was because of all this work that from the moment camp began, Bell announced De La Cruz will be the Reds starting shortstop in 2024.

Add to that the fact that Topps has committed a decent amount of resources to making De La Cruz baseball cards. You can pull a jersey card, an autograph card, an autograph jersey card, all kinds of parallels, special stat cards, special variant picture cards, and probably more as the season goes along. Topps didn't do that for Matt McLain, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, or any other Reds player.

Also, FanDuel has futures bets on specific statistics for teams’ star players. They chose De La Cruz.

Stop trying to find ways to explain why De La Cruz is going to be a bust. It's time for everyone to start enjoying the regular displays of awesomeness we will undoubtedly see from him this season.

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