Reds are wasting Elly De La Cruz and the window is closing fast

For Cincinnati Reds fans, it might feel as if Elly De La Cruz is just scratching the surface of his potential. From holding his own and posting a .710 OPS with 35 steals during his 98-game debut as a bright-eyed 21-year-old in 2023 to a 6.6 fWAR campaign featuring 67 steals in 2024 to finally bringing his strikeout rate below 30% in 2025, there have been plenty of highlights.

Still, it feels like we've yet to see the best of De La Cruz. A quad injury hampered him down the stretch last year and was a major reason why he hit just .236/.303/.363 after the All-Star break. This season, a strained hamstring cost him three weeks. So while he currently has a stellar 131 wRC+, which would be a career high, it still seems like he has another gear that he has yet to reach.

The question is, will he ever get the chance to fully realize his immense potential with the Reds? Still just 24 years old, he's far from a finished product, but Cincinnati's weak attempts to extend him have been rebuffed. Eventually, push will come to shove, and the Reds will pony up to meet his immense price tag, or they'll look at their razor-thin budget and decide keeping him around for the long haul is just too expensive.

Looming labor uncertainty amps up the pressure on the Reds to surround Elly De La Cruz with talent

With the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) set to expire on December 1, and negotiations between the owners and the MLBPA being extremely contentious, the possibility of a lockout that eats up some or all of the 2027 season is high.

Should that happen, De La Cruz will have one year of team control burned, leaving Cincinnati with just the 2028 and 2029 campaigns before he hits free agency. If they're going to win with their young superstar, it's going to have to be soon.

Krall doesn't see things that way. Asked back in June if he felt the urgency of a shrinking window, to which he responded no, and that the system just needs to keep producing players who can perform at the MLB level.

While it's arguable whether or not the Reds' farm system has done that consistently enough to this point, that's not really what ails the franchise right now. In addition to De La Cruz, Cincy's pipeline has also given the team Chase Burns and NL Rookie of the Year candidate Sal Stewart. If anything, it's reasonable to argue that the external investments supporting that young core have been deficient.

The Reds as a team had produced 15.1 total fWAR. The trio of De La Cruz (4.1 fWAR), Burns (3.5 fWAR), and Stewart (1.9 fWAR) combined for 9.5 total fWAR, or 62.9% of the team's total.

However, the trio of youngsters combined to make a total of $2,366,500 this season. The Reds' adjusted payroll per Spotrac is $133 million. That means Cincinnati has spent $130,633,500 on the remaining 5.6 fWAR the roster has produced. Or, put another way, De La Cruz, Burns, and Stewart have produced almost two-thirds of the team's value while accounting for 1.78% of the team's payroll.

That's a horrendous return on investment. It's part of the reason why Krall seemed to be caught between a rock and a hard place at the trade deadline, leading to the club's ultimate inaction.

Things are only going to get tighter from here on out. De La Cruz hits arbitration for the first time this offseason. Burns' extension kicks in next year as well. Hunter Greene's salary is going to nearly double in 2027 — and he might miss the entire season due to injury.

De La Cruz should get even better in the coming years. But one player alone (or even three) does not make a contender. The Reds are going to have to do more to build out the roster, and they won't have a ton of money to do it with.

Still, the budget (while fans would love for it to be more robust) isn't the problem. The issue is pitiful efficiency. That needs to change in order to build a proper supporting cast around the Reds' superstar; otherwise, they'll soon watch De La Cruz walk away with nothing to show for it.

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