“He’s always going to have to battle the expectations because there’s nothing he can’t do on the field,” manager Terry Francona said. “What we’re trying to get him to do from Day 1 is be as consistent as he can be and let your tools affect the game to help us win.”
At the plate, De La Cruz is bringing back his leg kick. It allows him to be a more aggressive hitter that can tap into more of his power.
The leg kick helped him generate some of the most impressive homers of his career, back in 2023 and 2024. As a way to cut down in his strikeouts, he switched to a toe tap in 2025 that made him more balanced at the plate. But then in September, in a bad slump, De La Cruz went back to the leg kick. He’s sticking with it this spring.
“It’s more comfortable,” De La Cruz said. “I just want to take good at-bats every time.”
“The conversations we’ve had are about looking to do damage — always,” hitting coach Chris Valaika said. “Controlling the strike zone. But especially now with (Eugenio Suárez) here, teams are going to have to make a decision about who they’ll have to come after. When (De La Cruz) is on base, that’s even more of a threat.”
Back in August, Francona identified something that he wanted to work on that could help De La Cruz’s base running going forward. He wasn’t able to run as much last year as he battled a quad injury. Also ,Francona noticed that De La Cruz wasn’t consistently tracking the ball off of the bat.
From the first official workout of spring, De La Cruz and the Reds worked on that.
“We can do better at knowing where the ball is all the time,” Francona said. “We’re fast, for the most part. I know we weren’t as aggressive last year as before, but we’re still one of the more aggressive teams. When guys are sliding into second and the ball is in the outfield because they don’t know where it is, we’ve got to do better at knowing where the ball is. We’ll work on that a lot.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
He also led the league in errors in 2025. Bench coach Freddie Benavides has drills in mind for De La Cruz this spring, and those drills are less focused on his mechanics.
“We’re picking up the pace,” Benavides said. “There’s a sense of urgency. (We’re working on) the internal clock. Knowing when he has to get after the ball. The speed of the runner. The scoreboard. The situation of the game. You start throwing a lot of that stuff at him even in practice and in the speed of his pregame work so it can translate into the game.”
The Reds are literally building around De La Cruz, and Francona’s lineup starts with De La Cruz slotted into the No. 3 spot.
De La Cruz has had to learn on the fly in the big leagues. He’s just now really entering his prime.
“He has a chance to hit 30 homers and steal 50 bags,” president of baseball operations Nick Krall said. “If he can mash in the zone and not chase… he’ll be an elite player.”
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