Reds let Elly De La Cruz play hurt and exposes an issue nobody is talking about

During Wednesday's episode of the Reds Hot Stove League radio show, president of baseball operations Nick Krall revealed that shortstop Elly De La Cruz played the second-half of the 2025 season with a partially torn quad.

"If you look at his year last year, and I think a lot of people don't know this, at the end of the year, like toward the end of July, he was dealing with a partial torn quad. And he has been rehabbing — he was at the ballpark today — he's been rehabbing this whole offseason," Krall said.

Cincinnati Reds fans knew that De La Cruz was battling injury during the second-half of the season, but no one knew the severity of it. After hearing Krall's comments, all of Reds Country is in an uproar wondering how in the world the organization would allow their star player to not only play through the injury, but start all 162 games.

Elly De La Cruz played hurt and the Reds had no backup plan

There's plenty of blame to go around, and while De La Cruz should be admired for wanting to gut it out, even he had to see the folly in his decision. During the second-half of the season, De La Cruz went from an MVP candidate to a player that most managers would've benched. From August 1 through the end of the season, De La Cruz hit just .221/.280/.341 after slashing .285/.363/.489 from Opening Day through July 31.

But here's one of the biggest issues that nobody is talking about — if the Reds decided to give De La Cruz some time, moved him into the DH role, or even placed him on the injured list, who would fill in at shortstop?

Of course the response most Reds fans would have is Matt McLain, right? While that's obviously the most likely scenario had Elly been shelved for a couple of weeks, it's not as if that was really a viable option for the Reds.

During that same two-month stretch, McLain was hitting .215/.284/.340 with a 69 wRC+. That's right, an injured De La Cruz was putting up far better numbers than a fully healthy McLain who Reds' fans will remember was bumped all the way down to No. 9 in the lineup.

Thankfully, the Reds have a plan in place heading into next season that will mitigate this type of corner going forward. Earlier this week, Cincinnati added Edwin Arroyo to the 40-man roster. While he's yet to play above Double-A, many within the organization to be the best defensive shortstop they have, which now gives the club insurance in the event De La Cruz endures another nagging injury.

Cincinnati must craft a better plan for De La Cruz heading into 2026. Assuming he's 100%, the Reds All-Star needs to be given adequate rest next season. Reds manager Terry Francona can't afford to run his best player into the ground like he did last season. This is a plan the Reds must discuss prior to touchdown in Goodyear next spring.