The Cincinnati Reds enter today with an 0-1 record after a loss on Opening Day that saw them get shutout. The team only had four hits on the day and three of those belonged to Sal Stewart. Elly De La Cruz had the other one. One national baseball writer seems to think there’s going to be plenty more where that came from for the Reds shortstop. Keith Law of The Athletic picked De La Cruz as his 2026 National League Most Valuable Player in his preseason predictions (subscription required) article.
You don’t have to squint too hard to see that Elly De La Cruz could put up a big season. Two years ago he had a 6.6 WAR season (Fangraphs). Last year that that dipped to 4.3 as he struggled in the second half while playing every day with a torn quad that seemed to cost him both speed and power.
The 24-year-old is healthy this year. And he’s looking to build on some of the positives he showed last year. He cut back on his strikeouts, going from 31.3% to 25.9% and did that while maintaining a solid walk rate. And at least in the first half he was showing more power than he had in the past.
De La Cruz is still at an age where players tend to keep improving. If he can take another step forward from what he showed when he was healthy in 2025, things could get very interesting. Despite playing with a torn quad he still finished second in the league in stolen bases. With Terry Francona the Reds have been more apprehensive on the base running and base stealing, so it probably isn’t likely that De La Cruz is going to push for 70 steals, but he could probably get 40+.
In the power department, he was on pace for 30 home runs at the All-Star break. So it doesn’t seem out of the question that if he’s healthy all season that 30+ home runs could be in play. And if there’s a little more contact improvement again in 2026 then his average could get a bump up, too.
All of that, though, does sound like an “everything goes right” scenario. And it’s close to it. Staying healthy for a full season usually involves some luck. Guys get hit by pitches and sometimes that’s just a few inches difference between a broken finger and just a sore forearm. Collisions in the field happen, both with baserunners and with teammates. Being able to avoid being injured on stuff like this is mostly just luck.
One thing not yet discussed is the defensive side of things. Playing shortstop provides tons of value simply because not many guys are capable of playing the position and still being able to hit enough against big league pitchers to be worthy of being in the majors. De La Cruz is not the best defensive shortstop in baseball. That’s not because he lacks range or heaven forbid the arm to play the position. He simply makes a lot of errors and that has limited just how much value he’s bringing from the defensive side of the game. The arm can be a difference maker and we’ve all seen it in action. But it can also be a difference maker for the other team when his throws get by the first baseman.
If he’s able to lower the number of errors he makes then he’s going to see his defensive value skyrocket. He’s already getting a boost because he’s a shortstop, but if the errors come down he’s going to climb the ranks at the position when it comes to the value on that side of the ball, too. He would hardly be the first shortstop in the history of the game to have some defensive issues in his early 20’s that was able to clean things up with more experience.
There’s a whole lot of “what if” in all of that. If Elly De La Cruz is going to be an MVP then he’s going to have to get better in just about every area of the game. He’s going to have to hit for a higher average than he has in the past – much like he did in the first half of 2025 when he hit .284. His power output is going to have to go up – also like it did in the first half of 2025, but probably even more so. The defense is going to have to get better, too. All of those things don’t seem unreasonable, but they are also something he’s not yet been able to do over the course of a full season. Keith Law thinks that maybe this is the year. And maybe he’s right. We’ll have a much better idea about it all in October.