there's nobody in baseball quite like Ellie De La Cruz oh goodness that ball have a family the hardest hit ball by a red this year that was nearly 115 it brought everyone to their feet this man is electric so far in his short career he's already registered the fastest infield throw in momb history hardest hit ball in Red's franchise history and the fastest Sprint speed in all of Base ball and in 2024 he's on Pace to do something no player has even come close to in MLB history but first we need to understand just how he got to this point when Ellie signed with the Cincinnati Reds at just 17 years old he was labeled as very skinny and underdeveloped but over his first few years in the Reds organization he blossomed into a 6'5 200lb giant dominating at each minor league level helping gain League wide attention as a top five Prospect in the game and in 2023 following a success St at AAA with 12 homers and an over 1,000 Ops in just 38 games he was promoted to the big leagues becoming the youngest Reds player since J Bruce back in 2008 and he wasted no time adjusting managing to produce 10 extra base hits seven stolen bases and a 361 average in just his first 15 games with one of the main highlights coming on June 23rd in the club's narrow 11 to10 victory over the Juggernaut Atlanta Braves where he became the first Reds player since 1989 to hit for the cycle it took him less than a month yeah it's safe to say he was having a great start to his big league career and he continued this run of form through his 30th game of the season hitting well over 300 at 325 an Ops almost at 900 and stealing an impressive 16 bases but following his one for four effort on July 9th everything changed pitcher started to realize he likes to chase pitches out of the zone and started to use that information to their advantage and the result was him managing just a 191 average and 627 Ops to go along with 105 strikeouts and his final 292 plate appearances down the stretch to put this into context no other player struck out as much as Ellie in their final 68 games of the season and during this time he had a strikeout percentage of 40 Joey Gallows 2023 striar percentage was just 2. 8 points higher not the company you want to find yourself alongside in total his second half slum severely hurt his overall numbers and brought his season's totals to 144 strikeouts a 235 average and 888 Ops plus to go along with 35 extra base hits and 35 steals in 98 games it was obvious he was far from a finished product but 35 extra base hits and 35 Steals and not even 100 games is very intriguing especially for a player in his age 21 season and heading into his first offseason as a major Leaguer there were some obvious areas he can improve in for starters Ellie is a switch hitter meaning when a lefty is pitching he bats righty and when a righty is up he bats Lefty it's clear he is much more of a pure Lefty and it's shown in his platoon splits here you can see that in 305 plate appearances against right-handed pitching he hit 11 home runs with a 256 average and 799 Ops but against left-handed pitching his numbers dropped considerably with just two home runs in 122 plate appearances to go along with a sub2 200 batting average and Ops more than 300 points lower at 495 moving on another area he looked to improve in was his ability to hit to all areas of the park as he hit the ball to the opposite field just 11. 4% of the time in 2023 which allowed defense to shade as much as possible towards his pull side has shown in this play where the short stop was able to rob a hit up the middle and finally his last area to improve upon the strikeouts it was a problem for him all season and got worse once pitchers realized how much he would Chase in fact in 2023 he ranked in just the 24th percentile in Chase rate which helped him to just the third percentile in strikeout percentage and when looking for further into his swing decisions we can see that he offered at 35.
3% of pitches outside the Zone resulting in a 60. 5% contact rate on those pitches and as you would expect putting balls in play that are outside the Zone makes a lot of easy ground ball outs such as this one against the Giants these were the main areas Ellie looked to do better in and he set out to achieve these goals by working with Red's hitting coach Joel mckian where the two focused on shortening his leg kick to allow his swing to be more consistent here's an example of that in action with a clip on the left from from 2023 and on the right from this season as you can see on the left his leg kick is very pronounced and can easily throw off his timing the clip on the right however shows a leg kick that is far more subtle and allows him to stay more consistent with his swing but now the question might be asked if his big leg kick is gone then his power must have also decreased well to that I show you this home runn hit in spring training that had an exit velocity of 1117 mph and went 470 ft I don't think he's missing too much and to go along with his new leg kick also came a change in approach so now wait longer in the Box before committing to a swing and these two changes have helped him come out firing on all cylinders in 2024 for example in Chase percentage he ranked in the 24th percentile in 2023 but this season he is improved by over 30% finding himself in the 59th percentile and his outside swing as well as outside contact percentage have also improved by a considerable margin this has allowed him to swing at far more pitches in the heart of the Zone where he's been able to do more damage on them in 2023 he had a slugging percentage of just 574 against pitches in the heart of the Zone but in 2023 he's doing far more damage with a slugging percentage at 773 which ranks top 15 in all of baseball this has helped him become the only player in MLB with at least 35 runs scored 20 RBIs and nine home runs hit he also has the third highest OPS plus among qualified Short Stops only trailing mooki Betts and gunar Henderson but perhaps the most impressive he is far in ahead the leader in stolen bases with 30 bags swiped in just 44 games with a difference between him in second place the same as second place and 73rd Place Jake Bowers and if we average out his stolen bases for the rest of the year he's on Pace for 108 over 650 plate appearances if he is able to keep going at this pace he'll become the first player since Vince Coleman in 1987 to post triple digits for stolen bases an incredible feat for just a 22-year-old but this is where things get crazier and terms of players to post at least 100 stolen bases in a single season only one has reached double digits for home runs that being Ricky Henderson who barely eclipse the Mark at 10 in 1983 Ellie on the other hand is flirting with a 100 stolen bases while simultaneously smashing the baseball with nine home runs so far this year putting him on Pace for a little over 30 and if he is able to finish the season around this same Pace he will become the first player in MLB history to join the 20 Homer Hunter stolen base Club as well as the 30 and 100 Club this would be unprecedented in the game of baseball as players rarely have both of course we did just see Ronald aunia Jr swipe 73 bags with 41 home runs but typically either you steal 100 plus bases and hit maybe 10 homers shown by Ricky Henderson in 1983 or you hit 54 homers and steal one bag like David Ortiz in 2006 the point is what he's doing so far this year in terms of on the basis and with the bat has been nothing short of insanity and something we've never seen in MLB history and it's all stemming from his offseason adjustments remember when I mentioned he was looking to hit the ball to all parts of the field well he's doing just that increasing his percentage of hits to the opposite field from 11.
