Looking back at Elly De La Cruz’s rise to MLB stardom: ‘You cannot take your eyes off the field when he's in the game’

In the months leading up to the 2022 MLB season, Jim Day found himself in an unusual position. The longtime dugout reporter on Reds broadcasts, Day usually spends the early weeks of spring training familiarizing himself with the major-league roster he’ll be covering that season. But due to the lockout that kept all players on active rosters away from spring training facilities until a new CBA was finalized, there were no big leaguers around to talk to.

Instead, a select group of non-roster Reds minor leaguers had reported to Arizona in February to begin preparing for a season with an undetermined start date. Included in that group was a 20-year-old shortstop named Elly De La Cruz, who had started to build significant buzz in the organization the previous season with a stateside debut in which he dominated the Arizona Complex League before a stellar showing in 50 games with Low-A Daytona.

With the lockout dragging on and no major-league workouts to cover, Day homed in on the minor-league action. It was time to find out what all the De La Cruz hype was about.

“I watched him for a month straight,” Day told Yahoo Sports. “That was all that was going on. It was incredible.”

Day recalled one particular sequence during a scrimmage that served as a fitting introduction to the kind of player De La Cruz is: “There was a routine ball hit to third, and he beat it out. On the next pitch, he stole second. Next pitch, stole third. And then a grounder got him home.”

It’s the kind of sequence that has become awfully familiar to fans since De La Cruz’s speed and ambition on the basepaths arrived in the major leagues. At the time, though, on a backfield in front of a sparse crowd of spectators, the novelty was still intact.

“I'm like, ‘That was a ground ball to third that just resulted in a run!’” Day recalled.

Once the lockout ended and spring training games began, De La Cruz made a few cameos as a late-inning defensive substitution. His first appearance came March 23 against Milwaukee in a game that happened to be televised, a rarity for Reds spring training contests. Like Day, Reds play-by-play man John Sadak had heard rumblings of the young shortstop’s potential but had yet to witness De La Cruz’s star power up close.

In the eighth inning of a tie game with two outs, De La Cruz — sporting No. 68 like any other spring training minor-league call-up — stepped to the plate with the bases loaded. “And here is the young star, Elly De La Cruz …”, an eager Sadak said on the broadcast.

Before he could set the stage any further: THWACK. On the first pitch, De La Cruz sent a screaming line drive over the center-field wall for a go-ahead grand slam.

"He just met the moment,” Sadak said, reflecting on his earliest Elly encounter. “Our first introduction to him and to our audience — and he hit a game-winning grand slam!”

As De La Cruz settled back into the dugout after celebrating with his teammates, Sadak, in awe of what had just transpired, offered some apt foreshadowing: “And just think what’s to come.”

Indeed, Elly De La Cruz was just getting started.

Over the next six months, the legend of the 6-foot-5 shortstop with blazing speed and unfathomable power grew. On the day he was named to the 2022 All-Star Futures Game, De La Cruz performed the most iconic of switch-hitting party tricks: homering from both sides of the plate in the same game. Two days later, he did it again. At the time of his promotion to Double-A Chattanooga, he was at or near the top of roughly every Midwest League statistical leaderboard. His first Double-A home run traveled an estimated 512 feet. A week later, De La Cruz notched another home run that didn’t leave the yard, a daring inside-the-parker that left the broadcast in shock. His final season line: .304/.359/.586 with 28 home runs and 47 steals.

After a breakout spring training and a 121 minor-league games across two levels that cemented his status as one of baseball’s best overall prospects, De La Cruz had seemingly accomplished more than enough for one calendar year. He could’ve eased into the winter and focused on recharging his batteries to prepare for 2023, especially with a big-league call-up in sight.

But De La Cruz wasn’t finished adding to his 2022 highlight reel. Just nine days after playing his final game in Chattanooga, he was back home in his native Dominican Republic gearing up for a brand new season.

‘Every single day, he found a way to make us better’

The Dominican Winter League (or LIDOM, short for Liga de Béisbol Profesional de la República Dominicana) is one of the premier offseason leagues available to players in the Western hemisphere, a six-team circuit with an exceptionally rich history that carries significant weight in the Dominican baseball community. Dominican-born players become eligible for the LIDOM rookie draft after they’ve played a requisite number of games at a full-season minor-league affiliate. In De La Cruz’s case, that meant after the 2021 season.

The earliest picks in a LIDOM draft tend to be spent on the players who received the largest signing bonuses as amateurs, as those are often the players with the most substantial prospect stock. The 2021 draft was no different, as the first two rounds saw several high-profile hitters who signed for seven-figure bonuses come off the board quickly, including Marco Luciano, Noelvi Marte and Orelvis Martinez. De La Cruz did not fit in that bucket. He had signed with the Reds for just $65K in 2018, and his performance in the Dominican Summer League in 2019 had done little to hint that a seismic breakout was around the corner.

Carlos Jose Lugo, who is now a pro scout with the Dodgers, was one of the primary decision-makers in the Tigres del Licey front office in 2021. “I learned his name because I was just preparing for the draft,” he said. “I tried to remember if I had something, anything on him because I covered his team in the DSL ... but my notes were nothing remarkable. Good body, good prediction, but let's see what happens. Just a lottery ticket type of player.”

“I was surprised that he put it all together so quick,” said Jose Gomez, who has scouted for the Rays and was a member of Leones del Escogido’s front office for the 2021 draft. “When I saw him in the DSL, I saw him more as a toolsy project guy and not a guy that’s gonna be in the big leagues in four years.”

Because of the buzz De La Cruz had built during his stateside debut in 2021, LIDOM teams were intrigued, but no one was quite sure when to pull the trigger. As the third round approached, Escogido was targeting De La Cruz, Yankees prospect Jasson Domínguez or Rangers prospect Ezequiel Duran. Licey had taken Martinez and Phillies outfielder Johan Rojas with its first two selections. Based on the reports on De La Cruz that had flowed in from scouts over the summer, Lugo was hoping the shortstop would still be on the board for his team’s third pick.

"I was crossing my fingers in the third round. I was so nervous,” he said. “Lucky for us, Escogido took Domínguez, and the other teams kept picking the more recognizable names … so [De La Cruz] fell into our laps in that third round.”

As exciting as it is to draft talented young players, LIDOM teams know that is only an initial step. There is no guarantee that those drafted will ever suit up and play, as their development as big-league prospects is the priority so long as they are under contract with an MLB organization. In turn, player participation in any winter league is almost always dependent on the parent club’s willingness to grant permission.

Fortunately for De La Cruz and for Licey, Cincinnati gave the green light. Although De La Cruz did not play in the 2021-22 season — very few players appear the year they’re drafted, and he likely wouldn’t have been equipped to succeed at that point — he received the go-ahead to play in the 2022-23 campaign, even after a full minor-league season.

“As an organization, we’re very pro-winter ball,” said Jeremy Farrell, Reds senior director of player development. “We just think in the right situation, there’s a lot that a player can gain … It’s as close to the major leagues in terms of playing to win every night and less about balancing the winning and development aspects.

“It was about the environment … playing in a place where performance matters. And Elly rose to the challenge there, as he has at every level and every challenge that’s been put in front him. It was the next step in his maturation and development process.”

For De La Cruz, it was not just a chance to prove himself in an ultra-competitive setting but also an opportunity to play in a league that meant so much to him growing up.

“I've always been a fan of Licey since I was very little,” he said through Reds interpreter Jorge Merlos in an interview last summer. “I've always wanted to play in the Dominican. And when they selected me to go play with them, I mean, that was a dream. I've always wanted to play in [the] Dominican, and to be with Licey was even better, especially when you have all your family out there, too, that are supporting you and helping you out. I mean, that makes it even so much better.”

Even before the games began, De La Cruz immediately stood out. “I was at training camp almost every day,” said Fabio Herrera, a pro scout for the Royals since 2014 and then a member of the Licey front office. “And everybody started talking about Elly. We were like, ‘All right, this is the guy.’ He starts playing every day, and it was incredible, because every single day, he found a way to make us better.”

Costarring alongside another switch-hitting shortstop in Mets prospect Ronny Mauricio, De La Cruz helped rejuvenate Licey after several disappointing campaigns in prior years. Although he played only the first month of the regular season before Cincinnati decided it had seen enough, De La Cruz helped set Licey on the path to its 23rd LIDOM championship, the most of any team in league history. As the youngest player on the team and one of the youngest in the league, he hit .286/.396/.417 and stole nine bases across 24 games.

While he hit only one home run, it wasn’t just any home run. It was a homer that people will be talking about for years — and the defining moment of his month-long stint with Licey.

‘Did we just see what we just saw?’

Nestled in the capital city of Santo Domingo, Estadio Quisqueya Juan Marichal has been home to Tigres del Licey and Leones del Escogido since 1955. It is the only LIDOM venue with two tenants, and thus, the stadium has hosted the most games in the league’s nearly seven-decade history. It is considered the crown jewel baseball venue in the country and has even hosted a handful of MLB spring training games over the years.

One of the stadium’s defining characteristics is its center-field wall, a gargantuan target measured at 411 feet from home plate and extending nearly 40 feet above the ground. It is the headlining feature of Quisqueya’s reputation as a notorious pitchers’ park in a league that is historically pitcher-friendly. The combination of the climate (most games are played at or below sea level, with a marine layer breeze that hampers ball flight) and the lesser quality of baseballs means that home runs are far rarer in LIDOM than they are in stateside leagues. Add all that together, and hitting a home run to center field at Quisqueya is a roughly impossible task.

“That whole center-field wall,” Herrera said, “not only for Licey or Escogido fans, for Dominican fans — that center-field wall in Quisqueya Stadium is mythical.”

In the first 67 years of the ballpark’s history, only 12 players successfully summited Quisqueya’s center-field wall for a home run in an official game. On a Monday night against Estrellas, in front of a relatively sparse crowd that had unknowingly gathered to see one of LIDOM’s rarest sights, De La Cruz became the 13th.

In the moments leading up to the homer, Herrera was sitting with front-office officials from various teams discussing how impressive De La Cruz had been to that point. Then all eyes turned to the batter’s box.

“For a brief moment, we were all just staring at the bat,” he said. “And I don't know, he takes a pitch or something. And then he just whacks at it. And this ball starts going, starts going … and I'm just looking at it, and the way I'm seeing it is, ‘OK, the ball's gonna hit the wall.’ You don't think you're gonna see it.

“And the center fielder, he's running back, and then it gets to a point where he's like, ‘I'm just gonna wait for the ball to hit the wall.’ And it just goes. And I kid you not, he's rounding the bases. And I turn around, and … everybody's jaws drop. And we were just looking at each other, like, did we just see what we just saw? Like, are we all living the same reality here? Like, it's dumbfounding. I had never seen anything like that.

“Everybody in the stadium was in awe. Everybody I know that works for Licey and everybody I know that works for Escogido and Estrellas … none of us had ever seen one of those dead-center-field home runs at Quisqueya. Nobody. Everybody knew about them. We had all seen video, but nobody had seen one in person.”

The vast majority of the 12 other players who have homered over Quisqueya’s center-field wall were hulking sluggers known for raw power and little else. The first to do it was an American named Dick Stuart in 1957, a muscular first baseman who was one of the greatest home run hitters in minor-league history and hit 228 long balls across 10 major-league seasons. Next came the gigantic Frank Howard while playing for Escogido in January 1960; he went on to win NL Rookie of the Year that season and finished his career with 382 home runs.

Only one player has cleared the center-field wall more than once: Juan Francisco — the league’s all-time home run king, with an astounding 118 across 17 LIDOM seasons — has done it four times. Like De La Cruz, Francisco came up with some promise in the Reds’ minor-league system, but his power-only profile was unable to sustain a lengthy stay in the big leagues. In LIDOM, though, Francisco’s legend status is unrivaled.

“When I was little, I watched him all the time,” De La Cruz said. “He's just the guy. He's the guy that's done everything.”

“Francisco is from another planet,“ said Mendy Lopez, who played parts of seven MLB seasons for four teams and is second on the LIDOM home run leaderboard, with 86 in 548 career games. For De La Cruz to replicate the Francisco feat? “That's huge for us,” Lopez said. “It’s a big deal.”

And for someone as lithe and lanky as De La Cruz to have the strength and bat speed to join the so-called “411 Club”? That’s what had the baseball lifers who witnessed it particularly shook.

“It was just a magical moment,” Herrera said. “We talked about that s*** for days. It was actually funny because we would be in a meeting at the Licey offices, and somebody would pull out a cell phone, like, ‘Hey, you guys see this?’ And then we just pull up the video, like, ‘Ah, let me see it again!’”

Asked what it was like to hit such a rare home run, De La Cruz’s humility won out: “I was definitely fortunate that I was able to play and do that stuff, but in reality, I wasn't thinking about hitting it over center field. I was just there to play ball … and somehow it just went over it.”

Still, those who saw it refuse to let that singular swing go underappreciated.

“He probably didn't realize how important that was,” Herrera said. “I don't think at the moment he quite had a grasp on it.”

‘Pay attention ... That's the guy you want to see’

In just a month of games, De La Cruz sent ripples through the Dominican baseball community.

“Everything that he did in winter ball was incredible,” said Yankees outfielder Juan Soto, who was Licey’s first-round pick in the 2017 rookie draft. While Soto’s career accelerated too quickly for him to ever play in LIDOM, he makes occasional cameos at Quisqueya to be around the team that drafted him.

As a teenager, De La Cruz trained at the same academy in the D.R. as Soto, and he has trained with Soto during several offseasons since he entered pro ball, including this past one. As a result, Soto has seen firsthand De La Cruz’s rise from lesser-known prospect to full-blown star, as the skinny teenager who worked out with Soto in 2019 grew into the big-league physicality that was on full display in LIDOM just a few years later.

“It was really impressive what he did and how he changed his body,” Soto said. “If you see the comparison from 2018, 2019, it is a huge change.

“I knew he'd be in the big leagues soon,” he added, looking back on that winter. “I talked to him in winter ball and let him know that everything that he's doing, he's just gotta keep doing it, and he's gonna be fine. And that's what he's been doing.”

Said Mariners third-base coach Manny Acta, who has spent numerous seasons as a manager and GM in LIDOM, including for Licey: “For a guy playing his first year in winter ball, it’s rare to dominate the league the way he did. He left his mark there.”

Although De La Cruz did not play all the way through the playoffs and the championship round, he captured the attention of the league’s fans like few have in recent memory. Herrera worked for Estrellas Orientales during the 2018-19 season, when a 20-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr.helped fuel a memorable run to the team’s first LIDOM championship in 50 years.

In his eyes, the aura surrounding De La Cruz’s presence in LIDOM was similar: “Tatis would come to hit, and I would stop to see the at-bat. And I would see dads holding up their kids and be like, ‘Hey, pay attention. That's Tatis. That's the guy.’ And the same thing with Elly De La Cruz. … you would see dads with their kids saying, ‘Hey, that's Elly De La Cruz. Pay attention. That's the guy. That's the guy you want to see.’”

Before he even reached the major leagues, De La Cruz emphatically elevated his status in a country that has no shortage of big-league superstars with far more extensive track records.

“There’s something about a player that does good in winter ball,” Gomez said. “The fan base just knows him better. There’s no way Dominican people had ever seen Elly or will ever see Elly again the same way [after] they were able to see him on TV every day playing for a team that commands 40-50% of the fan base of the league. He might be a top-five most popular player in D.R. right now.”

And while it’s perhaps no surprise that a baseball-crazed nation such as the D.R. was quick to fall in love with De La Cruz’s style of play, he also managed to pique the interest of even the most casual baseball observers.

“My mother-in-law, she doesn't know baseball,” Herrera said. “... She's never followed a game. First time ever, she's like, ‘Hey, I want to go to a game. I want to see [Elly] play.’ For a person who's 60 years old, who's never cared about baseball. She's hearing so much about this guy. And she's like, ‘Oh, I need to see this guy. I need to get in on the action.’

“My in-laws went to the ballpark several times because they wanted to see Elly De La Cruz play.”

‘He’ll achieve other greatness we cannot conceive’

Since his legendary winter ball stint, De La Cruz’s collection of mind-blowing highlights has only grown. By the time he arrived for spring training in 2023, the excitement about his impending arrival in Cincinnati had gone mainstream, with De La Cruz appearing in the top 10 of every preseason top-100 prospect list.

And after two months of overwhelming the competition in Triple-A, De La Cruz made his MLB debut on June 6, 2023. The next day, he launched his first career home run to the very top of the right-field seats at Great American Ball Park, a rocket that left the bat at 114.1 mph and landed a projected 458 feet from home plate. He was a few feet short of becoming the second player ever to clear the bleachers entirely en route to an improbable landing by the Ohio River. The only player to accomplish that? Juan Francisco, of course.

With De La Cruz’s arrival also came more winning. Cincinnati, which was 26-33 at the time of his call-up, went 18-5 the remainder of June, including a 12-game winning streak that featured one heck of a grand finale in win No. 12: On a Friday in Cincinnati against the powerhouse Braves in front of a packed crowd of 43,000-plus, De La Cruz became the first Reds player to hit for the cycle since Eric Davis in 1989.

“That was probably one of the best games that I've ever been at,” said Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall, who has worked in the team’s front office since 2003. “That's the loudest I've ever heard the stadium for a regular-season game. It was just fabulous.”

A couple of weeks later in Milwaukee, De La Cruz stole second, third and home in the span of three pitches — entirely of his own volition. Sadak and Day can both recall the chaotic feeling in the broadcast booth when it became clear that Elly was about to attempt the ultimate theft.

"He didn't even talk to [third-base coach] J.R. House. He didn't even look at him,” Sadak said. “No acknowledgement of the third-base coach after he stole third."

Day was in his usual position in the camera dugout well, with a great view of what was about to happen. As De La Cruz reached third, Day had a feeling he wasn’t finished and alerted the camera operators. “I was like, ‘I think he’s gonna go.’ They’re like, ‘What?!’ I’m like, ‘No, be ready — he’s going to steal home right now.’

“After he took third, [Reds color analyst Jeff Brantley] starts talking about Elly … and I started pointing, like, ‘He's gonna go! I don't know if he's gonna get it, but he's going! He's going!’”

He most certainly got it.

“When he gets on first base,” Day said, “he tells [first-base coach] Collin Cowgill every time: ‘Papi, I'm gonna score.’ And he's mad when he doesn't.”

Added Sadak: “You cannot take your eyes off the field when he's in the game.”

In 2024, the Elly Show has rolled on, with De La Cruz’s highlights continuing to alternate between sensational feats of strength and unbelievable displays of speed. His first two home runs of the year both came on April 8 — first a 450-foot moon shot to center field and then a dramatic inside-the-parker — in an apt distillation of his all-around impact. On May 15, he went 4-for-4 with four stolen bases against the Dodgers in L.A. On June 24, De La Cruz’s 15th home run of the season landed on the decorative riverboat above the batter’s eye at Great American Ball Park, a feat only a handful of hitters have matched in the ballpark’s history. On July 6, he stole third base for the 15th time this season (no one else has more than seven swipes of third); later in the game, he scored from third on a routine bouncer to the pitcher.

Perhaps more to the point, De La Cruz hasn’t just continued to produce highlights. In only a few seasons, he has expanded the boundaries of what a highlight can even be. As Sadak put it, “With his skills … he’ll achieve other greatness we cannot conceive.”

‘He can bring a new wave of fans under the tentpole’

Although few rookies produced more highlights than De La Cruz in 2023, and the power/speed numbers were substantial, his overall statline in his debut season was not that of a full-blown star. His strikeout rate ballooned to 36% after the All-Star break, and he struggled to reach base consistently down the stretch, posting a .625 OPS in the season’s final month. His defense at shortstop and third was occasionally spectacular but often erratic. He was a good player, but there was obvious room — and need — for improvement.

This year, there are still crude elements to his profile, but the sophomore version of De La Cruz has started to smooth out the rougher edges of his game, making enough tweaks that his overall production better reflects the ever-expanding treasure trove of highlights to his name. While he still whiffs a lot and currently leads the NL in strikeouts, he has compensated for that by upping his walk rate to a stellar 11%, enabling a more palatable OBP.

On the defensive side, despite a league-leading 16 errors, advanced metrics such as Statcast’s Outs Above Average rate De La Cruz as one of the best shortstop defenders in the league for his ability to convert unlikely outs that few shortstops could even dream of recording. For someone with De La Cruz’s unrivaled range, mastering the art of fielding the ball cleanly and confidently was the first step in unlocking a much higher ceiling as a defender.

“I feel like his confidence level that the ball is going to stick in his glove when he catches the ball with one hand right now is really high,” Reds infield coach Jeff Pickler said. “That wasn't always the case. The freedom that that allows … when you know the ball is going to stick, you're no longer concerned with catching the ball. All you're concerned with is touching the ball.”

The next challenge for De La Cruz will be to dial in the accuracy of his rocket arm, a spectacle in and of itself but also the root cause of the bulk of his errors.

On the whole, though, De La Cruz’s improved defense at a premium position has boosted his overall value considerably; his 4.2 fWAR currently ranks sixth among position players. And perhaps most impressively for someone who plays such a max-effort style at such high speeds, De La Cruz has been ultra-durable, playing in all 94 games for Cincinnati and starting 92 of them at shortstop.

With that every-day availability comes the opportunity to rack up power/speed numbers like few in MLB history have before. De La Cruz leads the Reds with 15 home runs and has already broken Billy Hamilton’s franchise record for stolen bases before the All-Star break, with 45. Even with recent rule changes increasing stolen base totals league-wide, no one has seized advantage of the new landscape quite like De La Cruz. He has 16 more stolen bases than No. 2 on the leaderboard (Brice Turang with 29), and he has stolen more bases than five entire teams (TOR, ATL, DET, NYY, SFG). He has a realistic chance to become the third player ever to steal 80 bases while also hitting 20 home runs, something accomplished by only Rickey Henderson and, notably, Eric Davis.

It was 40 years ago that Davis made his big-league debut with Cincinnati and quickly became a fan favorite for his unrivaled combination of power and speed. Now a special adviser within the organization and a longtime mentor of De La Cruz’s, Davis is the reason Elly wears No. 44.

That No. 44 jersey has become overwhelmingly common not just throughout Cincinnati but also in and around big-league ballparks across the country, as De La Cruz’s popularity has already outgrown the small market in which he plays. Just as Dominican locals flocked to LIDOM games to catch a glimpse of him in action, Great American Ball Park has been teeming with eager fans ever since De La Cruz arrived. Coming off a 100-loss campaign in 2022, Cincinnati averaged just more than 19,000 fans in its first 32 home games of 2023. On April 17 against Tampa Bay, Cincinnati announced a paid attendance of 7,375, the lowest in the ballpark’s 22-year history.

Since De La Cruz debuted, the Reds’ average home attendance has soared north of 27,000. Last month, on Elly De La Cruz bobblehead day, 42,427 showed up for a Wednesday game against Cleveland, marking the largest non-weekend, regular-season attendance in Great American Ball Park history.

The statistics and attendance records speak for themselves, but De La Cruz’s impact goes far beyond WAR totals or gate numbers.

“What defines a superstar?” Sadak mused. “He not only has the outrageous, very hyper-specific skills. He not only seems to meet moments and win games by himself, which I think is part of what separates him … but there's also that ‘it’ factor of fun. I met hundreds of young Reds fans this offseason … and I asked them, ‘When did you start watching the Reds?’ Or, ‘What do you like about watching the Reds?’

“And the answer from almost every kid was Elly. And for many of them, they usually said they didn't really watch the Reds until he came. And I just started thinking about the galvanization of a generation of baseball fans — that's where I think he is such a lightning rod. It goes beyond the skills to the point that he can bring a new wave of fans under the tentpole.”

No matter where he plays or how many people are in the stands, De La Cruz epitomizes what it means to be a baseball superstar. On Tuesday, he will appear in his first All-Star Game, a formal recognition of the player he has become — and a bold reminder of how quickly it all came together.

Three years ago, De La Cruz was in the Arizona Complex League, his breakout in its infancy. Now he’s a big-league All-Star, widely regarded among the best in the world. Still just 22, he is the youngest position player on either roster and the second-youngest overall behind Pirates rookie (and NL starter) Paul Skenes. For all De La Cruz has already accomplished and all the fans he has garnered along the way, this Midsummer Classic — likely his first of many — will be his largest stage yet.

It’s another opportunity for him to put on a show like only he can.