CINCINNATI — Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz doesn’t like sitting on the bench, and he really hates missing games. De La Cruz played 162 games — with 161 starts — during the 2025 season, the first player for Cincinnati to play every game in a year since Joey Votto did it in ’17.
Considering that the switch-hitting De La Cruz plays a highly demanding position and is often stealing bases and sliding, it was a feat that deserved recognition. But was not missing a game always best for him? Would it be better for him and the Reds to get an occasional day off to keep him fresher and more productive overall?
“We’ve talked about that,” president of baseball operations Nick Krall said when asked after Cincinnati’s season ended. “Maybe he got tired toward the middle of the season, and it caught up with him. We talked about what’s the best way to deploy him moving forward, just on a daily basis.”
The 23-year-old De La Cruz admirably played through a nagging left quadriceps strain during a large chunk of the season without skipping a day. Even after the tragic death of his sister, Genelis, on May 31, he insisted on playing and then honored her by hitting a home run vs. the Cubs the next day.
De La Cruz only missed one start because of a canceled flight as he returned from the Dominican Republic after attending his sister’s funeral on a team day off.
On a few occasions this season, manager Terry Francona started De La Cruz as the designated hitter to give him partial rest. In one of those games, an 8-4 win at Detroit on June 15, Francona’s DH went 3-for-5 with a home run and three RBIs.
“I found out a good way to really piss him off. I told him, ‘I think you’d make a good DH.’ I think I heard some Spanish curse words,” Francona said after that game, getting laughs.
De La Cruz played 160 games with 159 starts in 2024 under then-manager David Bell, during which he batted .259 with an .810 OPS, 25 homers, 76 RBIs and a Major League-leading 67 steals. He also led MLB with 218 strikeouts.
In 2025, De La Cruz batted .264 with a .776 OPS, 22 homers, 86 RBIs and saw his steal total drop to 37 bases. But even as he saw more breaking balls in the second half, he still cut down on his overall strikeouts: 181.
Other than the dip in stolen bases, which possibly was quad-related and because the Reds were more selective in stealing overall, there wasn’t a dramatic decline in his overall production. But within the season, there were noticeable issues. After hitting 18 homers over his first 79 games and 302 at-bats, De La Cruz slugged only four more homers in his final 83 games and 327 at-bats of the season. There was a 30-game gap without clearing the fences between June 24-July 30. That was topped by an even longer 43-game drought without a homer from Aug. 1-Sept. 18 while his .575 OPS in August marked the worst month of his career.
Over his first 337 MLB games, De La Cruz averaged a home run every 23 at-bats.
As for his quad injury, De La Cruz felt he managed it well with treatment and his daily preparation.
“If I feel like I can go out there and play, I’m good,” De La Cruz said via translator Tomas Vera on Sept. 30 during the National League Wild Card Series vs. the Dodgers.
There were times when De La Cruz’s defense lagged as well. For the second year in a row, he led the Majors in errors (26), with many of them coming on routine plays. More than half of them (14) came over the final 64 games.
“Obviously, he had some hiccups defensively in the second half of the season,” Krall said. “But we have to figure out how to clean those up and get him to become a better shortstop making those routine plays.”
As for the common question of whether De La Cruz should be moved off shortstop to center field to get more production from him offensively, that’s not in the club’s plans.
“As of right now, no,” Krall said.
