Today is the day that many people have been waiting at least the last month for – the Cincinnati Reds have called up Elly De La Cruz from Triple-A Louisville. Nick Senzel’s knee has been bothering him and it had caused him to miss two games within the last week and the Reds decided that it was something that was going to require a trip to the injured list today, and that meant calling up De La Cruz from the minors.
Baseball’s top prospect, Elly De La Cruz has hit .298/.398/.633 this season in 38 games with the Louisville Bats. That’s come with 11 doubles, 3 triples, 12 home runs, and 11 steals. The infielder began the season on the injured list and missed the first three weeks of the season. Upon his activation in Triple-A, he struggled mightily, going 1-21 with 11 strikeouts and no walks. But almost on the flip of a switch, everything turned around. Since that 1-21 start he’s had 165 plate appearances and hit .336/.442/.715.
For about the first two weeks of that turn around Elly De La Cruz wasn’t walking much, but his strikeout rate had come down. Then, just like the hitting came around almost like someone turned on a light, he began to walk at an elite level out of nowhere. And it was the first time that he had ever really done that in his career. Since the 9th of May, De La Cruz has 24 walks and 26 strikeouts in 114 plate appearances.
The 21-year-old was among the youngest players in Triple-A this year. He’ll be 21 all season, with a birthday in January. This year he hasn’t faced a pitcher that’s younger than he is. The most exciting player in baseball has come out and put together the best run of his career and he’s done so while being incredibly young and done it at the top level in the minor leagues while making adjustments in a very short period of time.
There are going to be some questions about where he’s going to play long term, but it seems that perhaps the Reds tipped their hat. Yesterday it was reported by multiple beat writers that Jonathan India has been taking ground balls at third base for the last week or so. That would indicate that perhaps he’s going to be sliding off of second base. Looking at how the Reds have handled the shortstop position in Double-A and Triple-A when both Matt McLain and Elly De La Cruz have been on the same team, it’s been McLain that slid to second base when he wasn’t at shortstop. I’m just reading the tea leaves here, but those two things certainly suggest that the Reds plan would involve sliding McLain to second, India to third, and letting De La Cruz take over at shortstop.
That plan may not happen immediately. Jonathan India may need some more time to get ready for the move. And Elly De La Cruz can most certainly handle third base in the mean time – he’s played there at times over the last two seasons. Long term, though, it appears that Cincinnati has a plan they’re working on getting into place.