Nick Krall backpedaling after Elly De La Cruz remarks will leave Reds fans skeptical

Cincinnati Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall has yet to learn from his past mistakes. During his tenure as the team's GM, Krall set the stage for disappointment after saying the Reds would be aligning their payroll to their resources. Then there was the infamous "peaks and valleys" comment he made that caused Reds Country to roll their eyes in disgust. Earlier this week, Krall stuck his foot in his mouth again.

The team's top decision-maker raised eyebrows during a radio interview after claiming that Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz played through injury during the second-half of the 2025 season. While most Reds fans knew that De La Cruz was playing hurt — it was obvious to anyone who'd watched him play — no one knew the severity of the injury.

Krall defined it as a "partial torn quad". After learning this, Reds fans were understandably upset. Not only were the Reds allowing Elly to play hurt, they never gave him a day off. De La Cruz played all 162 games last season, and by Krall's own admission, he was ineffective. "He tried to grind through it," Krall said. "And to the determinant of himself, he didn't play up to where he was (during the first-half of the season)."

Nick Krall doing damage control after comments surrounding Elly De La Cruz sparked outrage among Reds fans

After the show, Krall obviously got wind that his comments went over like a lead balloon, and he then kicked into damage control-mode. On Thursday, Krall clarified his comments saying, “I said partial tear on the radio, meaning strain. It was more nagging than serious.” That's like saying, "I said tropical storm, meaning a gentle breeze."

If we're to take Krall at his word — and I'm not — this can be only be explained in one of two ways. Either he was over exaggerating De La Cruz's injury in order to justify the team's decision to keep him at shortstop next season despite leading the league in errors for a second straight season (which is what prompted Krall's response in the first place). Or, he's lying and is trying to cover his tracks. Either way, this is a bad look.

Krall should probably retire from public speaking at this point, because every time a microphone is shoved in his face he finds a way to spark controversy. Cincinnati has had to fend off Hunter Greene trade rumors all offseason, and Krall did nothing to silence those either. We're barely three weeks into the offseason, and the Reds are already a mess. Get it together, Nick!