Reds' star Elly De La Cruz seeks to vanquish his fatal flaw ahead of the 2025 season

Elly De La Cruz is likely one of the most feared hitters in baseball…unless you’re a lefty. Against right-handers, the Reds phenom is Superman with a baseball bat, lofting balls deep into the night sky. But southpaws? They’re his kryptonite.

The switch-hitting De La Cruz would barely make a big-league roster if he were to only bat right-handed. His stat line is a measly .209/.280/.320 when facing lefties, but his prowess as a lefty and as a speed threat make overlooking this weakness easy. Reds manager Terry Francona, though, doesn’t overlook weaknesses.

If Reds' superstar Elly De La Cruz slightly improves against lefties, he could enter a new realm of greatness

Instead, Francona issued De La Cruz a challenge: become the best player on the best team in baseball. Being the best means producing quality at-bats in every type of situation. 

Even a slight improvement, let’s say raising his batting average to .225 against lefties, would provide a bump to the team as a whole. Sure, that’s only five more hits over 150 at-bats, but that’s five more chances for him to create chaos on the bases and five more opportunities to score.

De La Cruz, though, doesn’t seem interested in slight improvements. He has started spring training with a bang. In his spring training debut, he homered from both sides of the plate, and his second blast, off of lefty Logan Allen, went to the opposite field. De La Cruz continued his success by bashing a ground-rule double off southpaw Tyler Anderson to open the scoring on the 26th.

This isn’t your typical De La Cruz. Last year, he hit just three extra-base hits to the first-base side of the field. One of those was an inside-the-park home run that was the result of a fielder’s mistake. From both sides, De La Cruz favors pull hitting, sending 43.4% of his batted balls that direction.

We may, though, be entering a new era of Elly. He’s an MVP-caliber player from the left side, and if he swings a solid bat from the right, he will reach a new level. Might we see the first switch-hitting MVP since Jimmy Rollins in 2007?

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