ATLANTA — Elly De La Cruz has done it. He has put together a complete season of elite production. For all of the talk about what he could be one day, the player that he is right now has pretty much met the lofty expectations that have followed him for his entire career.
“Everywhere, you’ve heard people say that he has a chance to be one of the best players in the world with his ability,” Reds closer Emilio Pagán said. “He has kind of put it together. I’m humbled and lucky to be his teammate and watch him go about his business every day. The guy truly wants to be great.”
The last month has been the best month of De La Cruz’s career. Over the last 30 days, he leads the league with a 1.261 OPS. The surge has led him into a 30-30 chase, and he has 29 homers and 29 steals with five games left in the season.
“It’s amazing to be on the same team as him and to watch him,” Chase Burns said. “He’s a freak. I can’t stop thinking about the throw he made against the Dodgers. What an athlete. I enjoy watching him every day.”
His surge started on the night where he tweaked his quad and Terry Francona took him out of the game.
“He came to me and said, ‘Trust me, I’ll be ok,’” Francona said. “He’s just built a little different than a lot of other people.”
De La Cruz has a way of doing whatever he wants on the baseball field. It’s no coincidence that he returned from a hamstring injury in June ahead of schedule, that he went from one of the worst to one of the best hitters in MLB versus lefties this season or that he always seems to homer on his bobblehead night. It’s like he just sometimes sets out to do things.
He combines that with the work ethic and focused required to play every single day without a day off.
On the whole this season, he’s tied for the sixth-best OPS in MLB with incredible underlying metrics and the fourth-best WAR in all of MLB (according to Fangraphs).
“I feel really good,” De La Cruz said. “(I improved) everywhere. Defense. Offense. Being a good teammate.”
Eugenio Suárez says that he’ll always tell De La Cruz, “Never stop. Go for more.”
The next step for De La Cruz is truly being the MVP.
“You always make adjustments,” De La Cruz said. “You never settle. You always want to be better.”
Francona has noted De La Cruz’s maturity. Recently, rookie Carlos Jorge missed the cutoff man on a relay throw. On that play, De La Cruz was also lined up to throw to third base instead of second base on the play.
“I started to (talk to Jorge), but Elly grabbed him,” Francona said. “Elly lined up for third (base). In my opinion, the throw goes to second. Elly was lined up for third… he went right to (Jorge) and said you should have gone to second but it’s my fault because I wasn’t there. He already took care of that.”
“Francona liked that “very much. When players do stuff correctly, it has way more meaning.”
The maturity extends to De La Cruz’s consistency at shortstop.
“The improvement at shortstop is what really tickles me,’ Francona said. “He goes into the hole. He goes both ways. He didn’t do that as well last year. He spent a lot of time trying to mature his game, and it shows.”
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Chase Burns’ handful of shortened starts that closed out his season weren’t just about adding a few more innings onto his end-of-season total. He was making adjustments up through his final start of the season.
The biggest development was with his sinker.
In the past, Burns said, the sinker was a “party trick” that he just threw when he was messing around. Then, after a loss in San Francisco where Burns allowed five runs in 3 ⅔ innings in late August, Burns was throwing it some during catch play. Burns said that bullpen coach Oscar Marin saw the pitch and talked to him about it.
“Try this.”
Burns worked on the sinker in his next bullpen. Then, he threw it nine times against the Cubs.
He wasn’t planning to throw it as much as he did, but it was working.
“It was moving a lot,” Burns said. “Why not? My normal fastball is a cut-carry. This looks different to them. Having two fastballs is the big new thing. You look at Cam Schlittler. He has a cutter, a fastball and a sinker.”
Sal Stewart also gave Burns some motivation to work on that pitch.
Burns said that Stewart told him, ‘You need a sinker. That’s going to be something really big for you. It comes in and makes people think about it.’”
Burns didn’t throw his sinker a ton in September, but he saw what the pitch is capable of adding to his game.
“It can be huge for me next year when I’m more comfortable with it,” Burns said.
In 2027, Burns wants to pitch deeper into games. In 2026, he only made it past the sixth inning twice. Part of that was the plan to manage his innings, but he can also do a better job of being more efficient.
“Going out there and throwing strikes is a big thing,” Burns said. “There were a couple of times this year where I could have gotten out of innings quicker but was chasing swing and miss too much. As I get comfortable and more confidence grows, throw strikes and light it up against a hitter.”
He says that he wants to work on his sinker as well as his changeup to give him more tools to go deeper into the game. He also wants to work on his slide step to better manage the running game.
Burns wraps up his 2026 season with a 2.86 ERA in 29 starts. It was as good of a season as we’ll ever see from a Reds’ pitcher in his first full year in the big leagues. With the innings conversation expected to be behind him in 2027, he’s excited to take the next step.
“You build on it and take into account what I did good, what I did bad and what I need to work on,” Burns said. “The sky is the limit for next year. I hold myself to a high standard. I’ll try to get another All-Star and get even closer to that Cy Young.”
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The Reds’ roster has changed a lot over the last two months as the Reds made a point to get younger.
Carlos Jorge, Héctor Rodríguez, Juan Brito, Oswaldo Cabrera, Will Banfield, Brandon Williamson, Carson Spiers, Luis Mey, Connor Phillips and Zach McCambley — that’s 10 of the 28 players on the big league roster — have joined the mix. Edwin Arroyo was also on the big league roster earlier this month.
So the Reds can be more familiar with some of these players next spring, when they’re ideally competing for spots on the big league roster, the Reds are seeing what these guys can do down the stretch this season.
“We’re playing (Jorge) and leading him off because we want to see as much as we can of him because when you get to spring training, it’s hard,” Francona said. “The more information, you can have on players, the better. I want to learn them the best you can. It takes a little while. They get here, they’re nervous, they try to do some things out of their game. Once they settle in, you start to see who they are.”
The inexperience of these players has shown at times, and they’ve all gone through ups and downs as they adjust to the big league level. Francona has his “antenna” up with these players.
“I don’t want them to ever feel like we’re going to scream at them if they make a mistake,” Francona said. “I’ve tried to explain to them that for me to do my job right, I’ve got to talk to you when you do stuff. I want you guys to be able to play the game freely because I think it’s the best way. Saying that, when you don’t know somebody and somebody takes off, I want to know why.”
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Brady Singer, who will be a free agent at the end of the season, is closing out the year in the middle of one of the biggest ruts of his career. Over the last two months, he has a 7.99 ERA in 10 starts.
“I’m just really unhappy with my year,” Singer said. “It’s kind of one of the bigger years I needed to do good. I didn’t. That’s how things go sometimes. I went out there and gave it everything I had every outing. It just didn’t work out.”
Singer, who has one more start left, has a 5.67 ERA this season.
His struggles early in the season were defined by the blister that he was pitching through and the multiple contusions that he suffered after getting him by several comebackers. His struggles over the last two months have been about mechanics. He said that his sinker in particular isn’t moving the way that he’d want it to.
Despite his struggles, he’ll have a market in free agency because of his proven durability.
“I’m not happy about the results, but I’m excited for what’s next,” Singer said. “I have no clue what’s going to happen. Excited to go into the offseason, go back to work and figure out how to make myself better.”
The Reds acquired Singer before last season in what turned out to be a successful trade for the team (Jonathan India and Joey Wiemer for Singer). Singer carried the rotation for a stretch last August when the unit got worn down. This year, once he got healthy, he had a two month stretch where he pitched very well. That success didn’t last.
Singer said about his Reds career as a whole, “I like that I was able to make the starts, make the innings and I built up a lot of really good relationships here. The staff has done a great job. They’re open to getting better too, which is cool. I’ve enjoyed my time in Cincy if this is it. Everyone in here has the talent. I like this team. I like the clubhouse. The pitching department with (Matt) Tracy and Oscar (Marin) is really good. I like what it is.”
Singer hasn’t looked forward too much to think about what his free agency is going to look like.
“I’ve tried not to worry about that,” Singer said. “I hire an agent. They take care of all of that. I’ll take it day by day. Whatever is going to happen will happen.”
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This offseason, there’s going to be a critical negotiation between the MLBPA and the league that could shape the future of the league.
Cincinnati native and former Reds pitcher Brent Suter will be in the room where it happens.
“It’s an honor of a lifetime,” said Suter, who’s now with the Atlanta Braves. “I know there are challenges with it. There’s time away from my family. It’s not all positives. The fact that I can represent the player group, that’s an incredible honor. I take it very, very seriously.”
Suter is on the MLBPA executive subcommittee along with Chris Bassitt, Marcus Semien, Jake Cronenworth, Paul Skenes, Pete Fairbanks, Cedric Mullins and Tarik Skubal.
“I try to obviously get to know the issues frontwards and backwards, make sure I’m well-educated,” Suter said. “I take a pulse of guys around teams I’m with or around the league are thinking about issues and let them to form some opinions. I try to see it from other sides of view, not just being an older middle reliever. I want to see it from all of the perspectives and make a very educated vote when the time comes. I want to give some logic and some credence to what my heart is telling me.”
Suter got involved with the MLBPA early in his career when he pitched for the Brewers. He was in a prominent leadership role during the COVID year and in 2022 when there was a work stoppage during CBA negotiations.
“Some days, there’s some big issues to tackle,” Suter said. “There’s some seriousness going on. There’s tension. Very much attention to detail trying to get this right and find common ground whenever we can. Definitely, there are some moments of tension.”
Suter’s experience and his intellect bring a lot to the table with the MLBPA subcommittee.
“He’s a great spokesman for our game,” Skubal said in an MLBPA video last year. “Being able to serve on the subcommittee alongside him has been great. Our conversations have been awesome, checking in and going over different things. He has a lot of experience that I don’t have. I’ve been leaning on him a ton.”
