There have been a lot of things said about Elly De La Cruz over the last two years as he’s gone from unknown prospect to arguably the best prospect in all of baseball. Almost all of it has been good, but the one thing that has had some skepticism with is is that De La Cruz has not walked all that much in his career.
That has been true. He’s always been pretty young for the level he’s played at, and that does work in his favor, but he’s never really walked at a high clip. In 2022 he walked more than he had in 2021, coming in with a 7.8% walk rate between his time in High-A Dayton and Double-A Chattanooga.
The start of the 2023 season didn’t go well for Elly De La Cruz. After missing the first three weeks of the season as he recovered from a hamstring injury suffered in spring training, the infielder joined Triple-A Louisville and went 1-21 with no walks and 11 strikeouts to start the season.
Since that 22nd plate appearance of the season, Elly De La Cruz has crushed the baseball. He’s hit .344/.442/.750 in 77 plate appearances since that point in time. Not only has the hitting itself improved, but what he’s done in May is something we’ve never seen him really do before. We’re not quite to the middle of the month yet, but De La Cruz has already walked 10 times. It’s only the third month in his career that he’s drawn double digit walks – the other two times came last season. But more impressive than just him walking a ton during the month, he’s walked more often than he’s struck out. He’s gone three straight games without a strikeout and only has eight strikeouts during May.
Elly De La Cruz is 21-years-old. He’s among the youngest players in Triple-A. He hasn’t yet faced a pitcher that is younger than he is this season. Last year he only did so once. It’s possible that this is simply a hot streak where he’s absolutely locked in – he had a run last June where he had eight walks and eight strikeouts in a nine game stretch while with Dayton. But if what we’re seeing is remotely close to him taking a true step forward in understanding better pitch selection, things could get even more interesting when it comes to De La Cruz than even the most optimistic of people may have thought. Stay tuned.