Red Sox just taught Reds a harsh lesson about wasting time with Elly De La Cruz

The Boston Red Sox just made rookie sensation Roman Anthony a very rich man. The Red Sox agreed to a surprising contract extension with their young star, locking him in to an eight-year, $130 million deal that could reach a maximum of $230 million if he hits certain benchmarks. The Red Sox outfielder debuted to much pomp and circumstance this season and is seen as a cornerstone in Boston.

Unfortunately, for the Cincinnati Reds, their window to negotiate a pre-arbitration deal with shortstop Elly De La Cruz may have already expired. De La Cruz, now in his second full-season in the league, has become a superstar and his earning potential may have skyrocketed past the point Reds' negotiating threshold.

De La Cruz just went to the All-Star Game for the second time his career and is hitting .279/.356/.478 with 19 home runs and 73 RBI this season. De La Cruz has gone from one of the best players on the Reds roster to one of the best players in all of Major League Baseball.

Red Sox just taught Reds a harsh lesson about wasting time with Elly De La Cruz

The prospects of keeping the speedy shortstop in Cincinnati over the long haul, however, are rather bleak. If the Reds truly thought De La Cruz was going to blossom into a bonafide superstar, they should've locked him up back in 2023. As it stands now, De La Cruz needs to play just one more season for the league minimum before receiving a pay raise through the arbitration process in 2027.

Of course, there's still a chance that the Reds and De La Cruz could come to an agreement on a contract extension, but that number has gone up dramatically over the past two years. Some estimates prior to his breakout in 2024 assumed that De La Cruz could sign a contract similar to the one Anthony and the Red Sox just agreed to. At this point, any deal De La Cruz were to sign would likely be double that.

Another thing standing in the way of a Reds-Elly De La Cruz contract extension is Scott Boras. De La Cruz's agent is known to take his clients all the way through the arbitration process and into free agency to get fair market value. Boras knows what he has in De La Cruz, and it seems highly unlikely that he and the Reds will see eye on eye on an extension.

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