Elly De La Cruz is raking in Cincinnati

Through 14 games he's hitting .500 with an OPS of 1.250

ELLY DE LA CRUZ

The man with the Midas bat.

sheehan:

Elly De La Cruz has been in the majors for 17 days, and the Reds are 13-2 in that time, 12-2 when he starts. He’s hit .321/.387/.536, going a perfect 6-for-6 stealing bases. He’s 21 years old without a lot of experience above A ball, and yet he’s managing a credible 3.2-to-1 K/BB, 31% strikeout rate, and 10% walk rate. De La Cruz has been splitting time between shortstop and third base, looking like someone who has played shortstop a lot and third base not quite as much.

None of that gets at the experience of watching Elly De La Cruz play baseball. He’s calm and confident standing in the batter’s box, willing to make the pitcher come to him. When he gets the pitch he wants, he takes a powerful, controlled swing, and he’s already shown the ability to both attack in the zone and generate good contact outside of it. If he’s not the fastest player in baseball, he’s the fastest good player in baseball, applying that speed aggressively. De La Cruz is a triple waiting to happen, limited only by the size of modern ballparks.

He has Soto’s presence, Franco’s position, Rutschman’s skill from both sides of the plate, and something extra, something Peter Gammons would call duende, the thing that makes you track a Reds game to make sure you see every one of his at-bats, and when he gets on base, stay with him to see what he does next.

What a boooooooomb. He’s so much fun to watch

Sheehan's description made me think of Puig right away--found this piece from 2013:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1680809-yasiel-puig-and-the-20-most-impressive-all-time-starts-to-an-mlb-career

Here’s hoping his career doesn’t take the same direction

On and off the field, I know...He's got almost a full year on Puig, so that's an advantage.

DE LA CRUZ CYCLE!!!!!

God this is so hype! What a player!!!!! Two weeks in the bigs and hits a cycle!!! Surely that has to be a record/close to a record?

Sick stuff!!!

The logic part of my brain says no way anyone has done it so quick. But the baseball part says that probably ya, some dude probably did it in the 1930s or something

I was keeping tabs on the boxscore, then went out for coffee--amazing.

Partial answer from ESPN:

He became the youngest player to hit for the cycle since Houston's César Cedeño in 1972, according to ESPN Stats & Information. De La Cruz is also the third player since 1901 to hit for the cycle within his first 15 career games.

Game still far from over, 10-11. Slugfest in cinny. De la Cruz about to come around for his 5th PA. Surely not another hit?

Side note: loving these Cinny uniforms. Very intimidating

Damn first pitch pop-up.

There are worse players to be aligned with than Cesar cedeno (absolutely insane player for awhile there, his peak was HOF level)

12 in a row. 5 straight comeback wins. 2 more wins and they tie their franchise high 14 from 1899. What a great great fun team. Braves will be a tough team to sweep, but the vibes are so good how could they not?

Great interview right now too. Interviewer giving him all the permission in the world to bask in his own glory, he responds with “best fans in the world, amazing team, I’m just hear to contribute to the team and help them win, there’s nothing more than that”.

I don’t think there will be any Puig team-dynamic problems from this guy, what a great thing for the sport.

(xpost) Me at 10 with Cedeno, spring training '72.

A list of everyone who's ever hit for the cycle for anyone ambitious enough to identify the other two first-15-games players:

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/Major_League_Baseball_Players_to_hit_for_the_cycle.shtml

Great picture clemenza

Hal McCoy says he is the fastest Red since Deon, who he says was the fastest he ever saw and the probably has seen the most Reds games of anyone this side of Marty in person.

That infield hit to the first baseman a few days ago was a crazy play.

Lore is that Bob Howsam tried to get Cedeno from the Astros for the Reds a few times back in the 70s, but I think after he rooked them for Joe Morgan they were not dealing. Got to figure that the Astrodome probably knocked Cedeno's home run totals down a 100 or so.

Thanks...Noticed something else about De La Cruz/Puig while putting a FB post together: Cruz's debut (June 6) was almost 10 years to the day after Puig's (June 3, 2013).

This was kind of alarming if you were following De La Cruz's last AB online:

1 Ball 1 - 0 94.7 mph Four-Seam Fastball
2 Foul 1 - 1 94.8 mph Four-Seam Fastball

Game Advisory
Injury Delay

3 Foul Tip 1 - 2 82 mph Curveball
4 Foul 1 - 2 81.1 mph Curveball
5 In play, out(s) 94.6 mph Four-Seam Fastball

Not sure what happened--foul off his foot?

Hal McCoy says he is the fastest Red since Deon,

Faster than Billy Hamilton? Because that guy was damn fast.

Things that make you feel really old: an ex-student of mine referred to him as a kid ("the speed on this kid is unreal") on Facebook today.

MLB lists EdlC's height as 6'5" and Judge at 6'7" but I think they are a bit closer in height than that would indicate... who's bluffin?

he was born in 2002! I'll go with kid

all yr base are belong to him

ELLY DE LA CRUZ JUST STOLE HOME! 😱😱😱 pic.twitter.com/dx2WU3qfa3

— MLB (@MLB) July 8, 2023

when you’re in the same sentence with greasy neale

In the 7th inning of the Reds' win over the Brewers, rookie shortstop Elly De La Cruz became the first Reds player to steal 2nd, 3rd and home in the same inning since Greasy Neale in 1919.

The same Greasy Neale who coached the Eagles to the 1948 and 1949 NFL Championships.

— Reuben Frank (@RoobNBCS) July 8, 2023

Interview I heard with McCoy he said faster than Hamilton yes. At that level, it’s probably negligible.

The guy he reminds me of is Eric Davis, who I think was about the best athletic baseball player I ever saw play in person. People kind of forget how good he was before the injuries piled up.

Don't know Greasy, but I thought of Jackie Robinson and Rickey Henderson.

Elly so tall he can just reach out and touch home

Elly De La Cruz is not raking in Cincinnati

He really has crashed. His monthly OPSs: .881, .686, .663, .557--that, and hitting under .200 in both August and September. Still has a decent shot at some postseason exposure, though.

premature ILB threads titles are raking this year though

He’s only 21, league adjusted to him. MLB hyped him up hard, I still see about two of his highlights on every ad break during a game. Hopefully he can work on some things during winter ball & come back better.

premature ILB threads titles are raking this year though

My favourite: The Thread with a Looming Expiry Date: Luis Arraez Aims for .400

I actually wanted to bump that one cos I noticed Arraez had started hitting homers and wanted to register my fear if that’s a new development that sticks

I think medium-range power is normal for his kind of hitter: Carew, Boggs, Gwynn, and Ichiro all had at least a couple of years where they hit 10-20 HR (Gwynn had a few), and Boggs hit 24 one year.

I'm looking at Arraez's splits (wrong thread, I know--I'll go over there if I have anything more to say), and it's really just August where he struggled (.236). He's .382 for the rest of the year. His next hit is his 200th.

simply insane that Boggs got 200 hits in seven. seasons. in a row. (and then never got 200 hits again.) we didn't know we were fucking born back then, the guy was consistently hitting over .350 for the season, season after season.

By the way, between the Luis Arreaz thread and this--Jumping the Gun: the Carlos Correa Thread like to think I invented the meta-premature thread.

"I'd like to think..." (some coding glitch--I actually did have a closing em-dash and those words).

I dunno if anything can beat the crash and burn of the Wander Franco thread title. yikes.

Y'all Elly dlC is back to raking again

He smashed Hunter Greene’s car window with a foul ball in spring training!

From EDLC’s Instagram:

https://i.postimg.cc/qR93cS2h/IMG-5725.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/28NW1pzg/IMG-5726.jpg

From Hunter Greene’s Instagram:
https://i.postimg.cc/Kv7ML9jj/IMG-5727.jpg

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.

A FB post pointed out that he played his 162nd game Friday night:

73 RBI, 108 R
26 2B, 8 3B, 24 HR
68 SB
.236/.312/.418
3.0 WAR

Pretty schizophrenic path there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiO3ru7wiFw

slo mos on the two homers seems to show that he's barreling it on the fat part of the torpedo bat