To catch a glimpse of Major League Baseball's latest Next Big Thing, one must merely look in the direction of Cincinnati.
That's where Elly De La Cruz made his debut at third base for the Reds at Great American Ball Park against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday. And to prove they aren't messing around with the 21-year-old's promotion, the Reds batted him cleanup.
Cincinnati Reds @Reds"Your bags are here. You gotta go to Cincinnati." <a href="https://t.co/xLY872QY98">pic.twitter.com/xLY872QY98</a>
He would rip a 112-MPH double for his first major league hit, good enough for the hardest hit ball by a Reds player all season. The Reds would go on to erase a 8-3 deficit in a 9-8 win over the Dodgers.
At 6'5", 200 pounds, De La Cruz is quite literally a big deal. And from a more figurative perspective, the bigness of his call-up is all there in his placement among MLB's top prospects.
De La Cruz checked in at No. 6 in out latest top 100, and he can otherwise be found at No. 4 for MLB.com. These might not even do him justice, as Keith Law of The Athletic wrote that De La Cruz had been "the No. 1 prospect still in the minor leagues" prior to his promotion.
Big Comps + Big Tools = Big Hype
Because he's a large dude who's mostly cut his teeth at shortstop since the Reds signed him out of the Dominican Republic in 2018, nobody should be surprised that De La Cruz is often compared to Oneil Cruz, the 6'7", 220-pound shortstop of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
As talented as Cruz also is, however, De La Cruz also attracts other, more exciting comps.
Charlie Goldsmith of the Cincinnati Enquirer likened De La Cruz's sheer athleticism to former Reds Deion Sanders and Eric Davis, the latter of whom had 162-game averages of 30-plus home runs and 40-plus stolen bases during his peak in the 1980s and 1990s. It's less than coincidental, then, that his No. 44 has already passed to De La Cruz.
The other popular comp for De La Cruz is San Diego Padres superstar Fernando Tatis Jr., and sometimes as a mere baseline. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, for example, referred to De La Cruz as a "switch-hitting Tatis with upside."
These comps alone get the gist across that De La Cruz has tools to spare, with a penchant for exit velocity that's already legendary.
He had been averaging a sturdy 93 mph on his batted balls—about 4 mph above the MLB average and on par with major leaguers like Julio Rodríguez and Randy Arozarena—for Triple-A Louisville and he even made exit velocity history on May 9:
Cincinnati Reds @Reds😲 WHOA, ELLY! 😲<br><br>Elly De La Cruz had THREE hits over 116 mph last night for the <a href="https://twitter.com/LouisvilleBats?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LouisvilleBats</a>. No major league TEAM has ever had three in a game.<br><br>🔴 118.8 mph RBI 2B righty<br>🔴 456 foot, 116.6 mph HR lefty<br>🔴 428 foot, 117.1 mph HR righty<a href="https://twitter.com/ellylacocoa18?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ellylacocoa18</a> ╳ <a href="https://twitter.com/RedsOnTheRise?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RedsOnTheRise</a> <a href="https://t.co/4Je78Aw8sd">pic.twitter.com/4Je78Aw8sd</a>
And yet it's actually De La Cruz's speed that's considered his best tool. He also has arm strength that can make even Oneil Cruz blush, as his throws have been known to challenge 100 mph.
The obligatory catch is that De La Cruz's offensive game comes with a hefty dose of swing-and-miss. He's struck out in 29 percent of his minor league appearances.
Yet given that he's raised his OPS each year he's been in the minors, strikeouts obviously haven't slowed De La Cruz's ascent to The Show. And as the James Outmans and Jarred Kelenics and even the Aaron Judges and Matt Olsons of MLB can vouch, a high strikeout rate need not block a hitter from stardom in the majors.
Projecting Elly De La Cruz's Rookie Season
To hear it from Steamer and FanGraphs Depth Charts, what's in store for De La Cruz now that he's with the Reds is a solid, yet ultimately unspectacular rookie season:
- Steamer: 9 HR, 8 SB, 94 wRC+, 0.9 WAR
- FG Depth Charts: 10 HR, 9 SB, 94 wRC+, 0.8 rWAR
To be clear, even a player with these numbers can provide the Reds with a boost. Thanks (well, "thanks") mostly to Nick Senzel, they've gotten just 0.5 WAR out of the hot corner so far.
But there's naturally the question of what it would look like if De La Cruz takes to the big leagues like a proverbial duck to water and graces the Reds with numbers more befitting of his tremendous talent.
This is where Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor are useful comps, if not in talent then in potential impact. They debuted less than a week apart in June 2015 and ended up finishing first and second in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. Between the two of them, they had 34 homers, 26 steals, a 131 wRC+ and 7.4 WAR down the stretch.
If that's more where De La Cruz's performance ultimately falls, he could crash a National League Rookie of the Year race that notably features a couple of his new teammates.
Fun Times for the Reds and MLB
Indeed, corner infielder Spencer Steer and shortstop Matt McClain have already taken home some hardware. Steer is fresh off being named the NL Rookie of the Month for May, while McClain earned the NL Player of the Week in just his second week with the Reds.
The topic of "Exciting Young Players on the Reds" must also cover second baseman Jonathan India, who won the NL Rookie of the Year in 2021, and hurlers Hunter Greene, Alexis Díaz and Andrew Abbott. The first two have been shoving for the better part of the last year, and Abbott just debuted Monday with six one-hit, no-run innings.
As such, De La Cruz's call-up hasn't so much changed the direction of the wind in Cincinnati, but rather its velocity. And judging from the excitement both within the team and the fan base, this already feels like a moment that will loom large in MLB's near future.
C. Trent Rosecrans @ctrentI've gotten to see EDLC many times over the last two years in the minors. The guy has an "it" factor that's not seen much in baseball. Along with that, his teammates say the same things about him on and off the record. It's impressive. People gravitate toward him.
Jared Carrabis @Jared_CarrabisThe Elly De La Cruz call up crashed the Reds' website when you go to buy tickets.
Granted, it would be disingenuous to cast the Reds as a team on the cusp of contention right now. Their 27-33 record is only good for third place in the National League Central, from which the only path to the playoffs probably goes through the division title.
But, really, would it surprise anyone if De La Cruz and the Reds were a proper contender as soon as next season? Even setting aside the winnability of the division, there's simply no ignoring the "2022 Baltimore Orioles" vibes coming off these Reds.
That gurgling sound you're hearing is MLB commissioner Rob Manfred drooling uncontrollably. If De La Cruz joins a growing army of dynamic young stars led by the likes of Tatis, Rodríguez, Ronald Acuña Jr., Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Adley Rutschman and Corbin Carroll, then great. If he does that and cements himself as a cornerstone piece of an ascendant contender, even better.
Such is the potential of the Reds' Elly De La Cruz era, anyway. All he has to do now is make it happen.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
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