Elly De La Cruz is raking in Cincinnati

This is brave, charming & impressive (especially in light of MLB drama this week):

Elly De La Cruz did his entire press conference in English, for the first time today.

“It’s important for the fans to understand me, and me understand the fans.”pic.twitter.com/IQOo4IIWwB

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) March 28, 2024

Refreshing even! A timeline cleanse for all the bad vibes~~~

what do de la cruz's fielding stats say? as someone who's SABR-illiterate

way too early for fielding stats to be reliable this early in 2024, but for 2023 he was well above average by the statcast Outs Above Average (OAA) measure - +4 OAA, which put him at the 85th percentile compared to others at SS/3B. his arm strength is already among the best of the game, at the 98th percentile

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/elly-de-la-cruz-682829?stats=statcast-r-fielding-mlb

i think the three hardest throwing shortstops in the game are all in the NL Central - elly de la cruz, oneil cruz, and masyn wynn

(if you want to know more about OAA, there are many more details on what it measures and how it's calculated here: https://www.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/outs-above-average)

ty zach! was just wondering because he's messed up a few easy gimmes in this mets-reds series

Didn't realize he was playing so well:

https://www.mlb.com/news/elly-de-la-cruz-power-speed-breakout-2024

tonite: 4-4 w/ 4 SBs versus Glasnow @ LAD

.277/.378/.516 (.894 OPS #17 in MLB)

is he on pace to challenge rickey?

30/44 team games = 110, so theoretically, within range (Henderson stole 130). But he's been on base 65 times (43 hits + 22 walks), and that projects to 239; Henderson was on 259 times, so probably not. Still wow, though. Of the nine seasons of 100 (Henderson, Brock, Coleman, Wills), only Henderson slugged over .400 in one of them (.421).

His success rate, it should be mentioned, is much better than Henderson's in '82: 30/35 for De La Cruz, 130/172 for Henderson. The rules are more favorable to base stealers now, though, right?

Yes - not quite apples to oranges. That said today's pitchers, partic relievers, are nastier than what Rickey had to face.

Lol I mean apples to apples.

Henderson became a better percentage base stealer as he got older--in the 70-80% range his first four seasons, 82% for the rest of his career. He seemed pretty hell-bent on breaking Brock's record early on.

(Plus he had a rather erratic manager...)

i'm not a fan of the oven mitts and pizza boxes. but maybe they're needed if pitches are getting to the plate faster and catchers have stronger arms than 30 years ago.