Elly De La Cruz Impresses in Cincinnati Debut

The prospect ranks are as high as an elephant’s eye at Castellini Farms. The Reds may have entered this rebuilding cycle with all the grace of an angry cat trying to get a cereal box off its head (as opposed to the awkward toe-dipping of the last go-around), but through trades and their own scouting, they’ve accumulated an impressive amount of talent in the minors. By our in-progress farm system rankings, only the Baltimore Orioles place higher for the 2023 season. Mean ol’ Grandpa ZiPS agrees; the Reds had seven prospects on the preseason ZiPS Top 100, a total that trailed only the Guardians and the O’s. Baltimore and Cincinnati combined seem to have about 80% of the shortstop prospects in baseball.

Whether you go by human or machine, no Red ranked more highly this winter than Elly De La Cruz, who was no. 6 (60 FV) on the prospect team’s Top 100 and no. 15 on the ZiPS list. After an impressive 2021 full-season debut, De La Cruz cranked things up a notch in 2022, hitting 28 homers and slugging .586 combined across High- and Double-A despite only being 20 years old. Questions still remain about his long-term defensive position, but his bat has proved to be even more potent for Triple-A Louisville, as he hit 12 home runs in a mere 38 games and is already two-thirds of the way to last year’s walk total. He’s responsible for the International League’s ERA going up by nearly half a run a game from 2022! OK, I made that last bit up, but you had to actually think about it for a full second before you smelled burning khaki.

In his big league debut (batting cleanup!), De La Cruz had opportunity to show off his ability to hit baseballs very, very hard. In the third inning, he crushed a high pitch from Dodgers starter Tony Gonsolin as if he were channelling Lori Petty, sending the Cat Man’s fastball screaming into the outfield at a spicy 112 mph, resulting in a double for his first major league hit:

He put one more ball in play, a groundout to Miguel Vargas; the 109 mph worm-burner was hit hard enough that the camera work went right from the crack of the bat to the ball in Vargas’ glove. And lest you think his debut was only about raw power, he drew two of the three walks Gonsolin allowed on Tuesday night. Evan Phillips spoiled the fun later on, getting De La Cruz to strikeout looking with a sweeper on the bottom outside corner.

And yes, this was no more a fluke than his minor league numbers have been. De La Cruz’s time with the Louisville Bats featured an average exit velocity of 93.4 mph and a 55% hard-hit percentage by StatCast’s reckoning. Now, there are still areas where he can improve offensively — for example, his 69% contact rate in Triple-A was on the low side — but one must remember he’s still a 21-year-old player who has rocketed through the minors, with little time to hang around and consolidate his gains. He’s also playing as fast as advertised, and gives the Reds a good shot to have their first 30/30 player since Brandon Phillips in 2007. The other two Reds in that particular club are Barry Larkin and Eric Davis, who were also pretty good as you may recall. Especially with the league’s stolen base boom, a 40-40 season isn’t impossible as an upside scenario unless he really goes full Ellraiser.

As you might guess, the already sunny ZiPS projections for De La Cruz have gotten even sunnier after his extremely successful stint at the highest level in the minors. ZiPS translates his 2023 so far at .271/.340/.488, a nice little uptick from last year’s .276/.314/.448 (the 2023 translations takes changes in league offense in the minors into account):

Repeating the methodology I used for the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects entering the season, this would move De La Cruz up to third in the prospect rankings, behind Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson. These projections have Cruz at third, but his projections at short at nearly identical WAR-wise, so either is a reasonable possibility from the projection POV.

With Matt McLain, a ZiPS favorite, having a torrid debut himself, Cincy has already made two de facto “acquisitions” that may be as good as any that another team in the NL Central makes this year. And they’re not the only ones. The Reds cleared the way for Spencer Steer to get an extended shot in the majors from Opening Day and Andrew Abbott, a 2021 draft pick who was our no. 90 prospect before the season (no. 130 in ZiPS) had a huge start in the high minors. He earned a promotion and threw six scoreless innings (and nearly five hitless) in his debut.

In a division where the Cardinals have dug themselves a hole from which extrication may prove difficult, the Reds have higher playoff hopes than they have any right to at this point in the rebuild. Going into the season, ZiPS pegged them with a 2% chance of making the playoffs, with the assumption that the Reds wouldn’t be overly aggressive with their top prospects. But McLain was up by mid-May and De La Cruz has a great shot at grabbing an ironclad lock on at least the third base job before the All-Star Break. As of Wednesday morning, ZiPS has the Reds at 9% to make the playoffs — still a long shot, but about the odds of an Aaron Judge homer in any given plate appearance and nobody’s exactly shocked when that happens.

And De La Cruz isn’t the end of it. That vanquisher of William Van Landingham and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, is hitting .352/.408/.716 in Louisville; ZiPS projects that the Reds would hit 11% playoff odds if they simply made him the starting first baseman right now. Now, Joey Votto’s eventual return might spoil that possibility, but there are enough weak spots in the lineup that the Reds could get creative. And the team may need to. It’s shocking, but the lineup may actually have a talent crunch in the near future that will require some imaginative thinking to manage. Jonathan India has had a nice little bounce-back season so far, so the extra shortstop prospect(s) are unlikely to find a short-term home there, and DH isn’t a great option unless the Reds give Tyler Stephenson much more time behind the plate. And while Wil Myers is ripe for a DFAing after he returns, Jake Fraley and TJ Friedl have done more than was ever asked of them entering the season. Who would have thought the Reds would be plagued with the horrible malady of “too much awesomeness” this quickly?

The Reds’ tepid approach to contention in 2021 may have understandably sapped many a Cincy fan’s love for the team. Ownership certainly isn’t doing its best to win back that affection, but the Reds’ young talent may. The fans sure seemed to enjoy last night’s walk-off:

There are more compelling reasons to head over to Great American Ball Park than there appeared to be a year ago, and Elly De La Cruz is a big part of that.