Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Reds fans and fans across the country.
Elly De La Cruz has not yet reached Tungsten Arm O’Doyle levels of legendry just yet, but he’s close. In the dark of the night on Tuesday while plying his trade against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Elly swatted a gargantuan 444 foot homer off of two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal that left the baseball world once again in awe, doing so
as the Reds fell 3-2 to drop their second straight game (and the series as a whole) against the Evil Empire out west.
He also added a relay throw from shallow CF that nailed Teoscar Hernandez at the plate, a throw that Statcast measured at a whopping 105.3 mph.
The arm is completely ridiculous. That’s effectively peak Aroldis Chapman on the mound, and it comes from a guy who now leads all of Major League Baseball in average, slugging percentage, and OPS against left-handed pitching just one year after the switch-hitter saw prompts for him from idiots to consider abandoning hitting right-handed altogether.
Though he missed a few weeks due to injury and recently was relegated to DH-only duties due to a quad strain, there are now only four (4!) players across MLB who have been more valuable than Elly, per FanGraphs. He’s been a 5.3 fWAR, 5.0 bWAR player so far this season, joining Eric Davis and Joe Morgan as the only three players in Reds history to post multiple 25 homer, 25 steal seasons.
Still, he somehow has his doubters. People will point to the errors at SS, the lack of stealing 67 bases again, and the still-untapped upside he clearly possesses as the reasons why, among other silliness. For whatever reason, it seems some folks still choose to discount what Elly provides both the Reds and the masses as the Reds themselves continue to languish in the cellar of the NL Central.
I want to hear it from you, though. What grade would you give Elly for his 2026 performance? Just how good as Cincinnati’s superstar been in your eyes?
Let us know in the poll below!
