The Cincinnati Reds made a lot of changes from 2024 to 2025. Plenty of those changes came in the coaching staff. While pitching coach Derek Johnson is returning, the club is getting a new manager in Terry Francona, and they are also getting a new hitting coach with former Reds infielder Chris Valaika and a new assistant hitting coaches with now former Reds minor league hitting coach Alex Pelaez and newcomer to the organization Will Remillard. They are already getting to work as they are looking to help Elly De La Cruz cut down on his strikeouts by changing a few things with his swing. Charlie Goldsmith wrote about the changes over at his newsletter.
“It’s a little bit different of a set up this year,” new hitting coach Chris Valaika said. “The biggest thing we’re going to focus on with Elly is keeping him aggressive, but being more in control with his forward movement. Moving more through the middle of his body helps with his adjustability. It helps with his decision making.”
The decision making part there feels like it is the most important. When Elly De La Cruz makes contact we all know what happens. It can be magic. But he also led the league in strikeouts last season and had a strikeout rate of 31.3% – which was 10th worst in baseball among players with at least 400 plate appearances. The strikeouts did not stop the Reds shortstop from being a very productive player. He made up for it by posting a solid walk rate, hitting for a lot of power, leading the league in steals, and providing tons of defensive value. At the end of the 2024 season he was the 9th most valuable position player in baseball according to Fangraphs version of WAR.
How much better could that be with better “decisions” while in the batters box? That’s the question the Reds hitting coaches are looking to get an answer to. But to get there, let’s talk about the decisions from the past. The first thing we probably want to look at is how often he swung at pitches that were not in the zone. Last season he swung at non-strikes 28.2% of the time. That is slightly better than the league average of 28.6%. It rated 104th out of 207 players with at least 400 plate appearances last season.
Swinging at pitches out of the zone is something you don’t want guys to do. Even “bad ball hitters” don’t actually hit well on non-strikes as a whole. Maybe there’s one very specific part of “out of the zone” they hit well when it comes to a particular pitch, but overall it’s not something that anyone is actually successful with. One can argue that at times it’s better to make contact on a pitch out of the zone than to not make contact with it – if you have two strikes, making contact is better because there’s a chance it turns into a hit. But if there are less than two strikes the odds of getting a hit are low on contact out of the zone and getting another chance at perhaps a better pitch could be in your favor of getting a hit later in the at-bat (or drawing a walk, etc.).
For Elly De La Cruz in 2024 he made contact on pitches he swung at outside of the zone 45.1% of the time. That was significantly lower than the 55.9% rate he had in 2023 as a rookie. The league made contact 56.2% of the time when they swung at non-strikes, so De La Cruz was significantly worse in this area than average. He ranked 180th of the 207 players with at least 400 plate appearances in 2024.
When it comes to pitches out of the zone, the decision making itself isn’t bad. He’s swinging at a rate that’s pretty much league average. You would like that to improve (and it did indeed improve from 2023 to 2024), and that kind of thing usually does come as players get more experience, though it’s usually a slow process rather than a big leap forward all at once. The issue when it comes to his expansion of the strikezone is far more related to his inability to make contact when he does.
But swing decisions aren’t just related to expanding the strikezone. Most guys also have some spots within the strikezone that they aren’t as good with as other parts of the zone. When it comes to two strikes, you’ve got to swing when it’s in the zone. But before then you might be better off leaving a pitch that is in the zone, but not in “your zone” to go on by and get another shot.
When it comes to the in-zone swinging by Elly De La Cruz we can see that he swung at pitches that were strikes 58.1% of the time. The league as a whole swung 66% of the time at strikes. De La Cruz laid off of strikes more than the average player. He was near the bottom of the league when it came to swinging at strikes – ranking 190th of 207 players last year.
When we look at how often he swings at all pitches, it was just 42.9%. That ranked 176th out of 207. Swinging more on it’s own isn’t the answer, of course. But swinging more at better pitches certainly would be. And those pitches are the ones in the zone, not the ones out of the zone. Juan Soto had the lowest swing rate in baseball last season, but his number was low because he rarely expanded the strikezone. Soto’s rate of swinging at strikes was 57.6%. That’s pretty much where De La Cruz was, but he swung at pitches outside of the zone far less often.
Let’s look a little bit at what Elly De La Cruz did against non-strikes and strikes in 2024. I will preface this by saying that these numbers may not be 100% perfect, but they are going to be pretty close. This data isn’t exactly publicly available in an easy to use format, so I have to run the numbers myself based on publicly available data and parse it all out myself. It’s also worth noting that these numbers will be based only on swings at ended an at-bat. That means a swing that was a swing-and-miss is only accounted for if that was strike three.
On pitches out of the strikezone, Elly De La Cruz had 27 hits and hit .134 and slugged .178. When it comes to pitches in the strikezone, Elly De La Cruz had 133 hits and hit .317 while slugging .609. While I don’t have the numbers for every player in baseball, I’ve done this exercise with plenty of players over the years and the numbers are similar to this in the sense that the disparity is like this. Strikes are far easier to do damage on than non-strikes.
What the numbers tell us is that simply swinging at fewer non-strikes would lead to better overall numbers for Cincinnati’s young superstar. It would lead to fewer outs made on contact, which would boost batting average and slugging as it would lower the denominator. But it would also likely lead to more strikes being seen and likely more quality hits and more extra-base hits given what we’ve seen in the data for how De La Cruz handles strikes.
Getting Elly De La Cruz to swing at non-strikes less often is a good step. But he also would likely see good improvements if he can improve on what he’s doing in the zone. He’s not exactly aggressive in the strikezone. That’s not always a bad thing, but most guys would probably benefit from swinging at strikes a little more often than they do. Again, guys hit strikes well.
We’ve noted that De La Cruz doesn’t swing at balls in the zone nearly as often as the average player does. So getting him to do that a little more is probably a good step int he right direction. But there’s another issue here, too. He doesn’t make contact often enough when he does swing at pitches in the zone. His contact rate on pitches in the zone was 79.4% last season. That was down from 82.9% in 2023 as a rookie. Last year the league average rate was 85.2%.
A big improvement in one area would go a long way for anyone. But for a player like Elly De La Cruz who can make magic happen with contact – whether it’s a 450-foot home run or a ball in the gap that a mere mortal would only turn into a double that he threatens to score on if there’s even the smallest mistake along the way of getting the ball back to the infield – it could go a bit further.
A big improvement in one area isn’t necessarily needed to make a big difference, though. Small improvements in all of these areas would likely make for a pretty big difference, too.
Every spring we hear stories from just about every team and how someone has a new thing going on that’s going to help them take that next step. Most of the time it’s something that we don’t see happen. Maybe that’s what we’ll be thinking about when August rolls around. But we might also be looking back and thinking about how this did make some meaningful impact. Now we just get to sit back, wait, watch, and see.
That’s good news. Hopefully they can help him reach more of his seemingly limitless potential. Maybe they can work some of their “magic” on Hinds too. That would be awesome on both counts?
Doug this the best article you have ever done imo.
Just excellent and shows how small the margins are in this game of inches! Thanks.
When you analyzed “strike zone,” was this the umpires called strike zone or the digital strike zone?
One of the things I think I saw with Elly last year was a tendency to lay pitches outside the digital strike zone but that were still called strikes by umpires.
I think someone did that analysis but I can’t remember who.
Until we have digital strike zones part of calling balls and strikes in the game, Elly is going to have to adjust to how the Umps call him.
And you could often see the impact on Elly of those missed calls. If there were one place in life EDLC might get discouraged, it might be these bad calls. Over and over. The good news is, once again, enter Francona. Can you imagine his impact even if helping EDLC navigate this?
That’s a good callout, first by Tom for mentioning the umpires’ zones in the first place; then by you for mentioning how bad calls seemed to affect Elly, for at least the rest of the plate appearance. It’s definitely hard when pitches that are almost certainly outside the zone are called strikes. It’s hard enough to hit a baseball, let alone when a pitcher that has made it to the highest professional levels is throwing it. Getting a strike called against you versus a ball changes an entire trip to the plate.
The defined strikezone via statcast.
Would love to see Elly win an MVP award with the Reds. He has the next three years to do it.
How the Reds handle the Elly situation will determine if they win another championship in my life time. I’m not hopeful.
I don’t think he hits free agency until after the 2029 season. I could be wrong. So that should give him the next five seasons (2025-2029).
I’d like to see him sign an extension soon but that’s not happening either. Maybe Tito or one of the new guys can get him to see the light. Huge future dollars aren’t always a sure thing, and more dollars now can be a better deal in the long run. We were all immortal at 22, professional athletes even more so. We all know how that turns out. Not to mention the possibility that the owners and players eventually reach a rational spot on salaries. Yeah, I know, the odds of EDLC signing an extension with the Reds is far higher than owners and players getting financially rational.
Yeah, they could very well deal him after the 2027 season with 2 years of control remaining. You can use the following link to begin working on your 2027 Christmas list:
https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2024/dodgers/
But will they be major league ready?
EDLC is technically under team control for 5 seasons, through 2029.
Possibly more important is that the current CBA expires in just 2 years, after the 2026 season ends; and, there are all sorts of warnings about gathering storm clouds. Some of the rumblings are that enough owners are dug in for a functional salary cap, however it might be labeled, that the season could be canned over that issue.
Additionally, 2028 is Manfred’s target date for fully centralized media rights and the revenue sharing he envisions along with that centralization to be in place.
So, no one knows what MLB’s financial playing field is going to look like in 2-3 years let alone in 5 years. This situation may create unforeseen opportunities during the interim.
Hey V4L. You mentioned three years for Elly. He is with the Reds till after the 2029 season. Am I correct? Counting this year he has five years left before FA? Assuming we lose a year for the new CBA to be agreed upon thats four. When do we trade him? When would be optimal time to get the most back? It should be quite the haul. I shudder to think the Reds brass even considering a Othani/Angels disaster where Angels got nothing back for him as they kept him, for no good reason I could figure till his contract expired.
Didn’t Elly train with Soto in the 2023 off season?
Yes.
Once he is actually taught how to play this sport correctly both at the plate, in the field and on the basepaths….he is gonna be EPIC!!. Often the lack of fundamentals type stuff he did last 1.5 years was of of 10U rec league level watching it unfold on a daily basis. Am convinced no one ever has consistently corrected or taught him how to really master this game. His antics last year at times should have found him sitting and thinking about it till he was broken of those bad habits. His talent is truly off the charts and do trust TITO to take him to another level way higher than we’ve even seen. However given where we stand financially compared to LA, NY and some others the chances of him extending at the end of his Reds team control seems to be very close to O.O Animal House Movie odds
Your responses to nearly every article are insufferable.
Come on Frankie, if you don’t like reading his comments, just scroll past them.
I could just scroll past them but since I had to read them I wanted to respond. While there are good commenters here some days the things people reply with makes me yearn for the days of newspapers when we didn’t have to see what the other readers had thoughts about.
This is a bad take. I’ll just leave it at that.
What “antics,” specifically? Behaviors? Lack of what, knowledge? And why did they require punishment, ie sitting him down until he learns his lesson? As determined by who?
EDLC is considered to have a very, very high aptitude for learning *in general.*
Just 24 months ago, he was coming out of A/AA and getting ready to report to AA/AAA. In that time, he has become an All Star and also learned English so well he pushes himself to do live, national interviews in his second language.
Wow… this is a painfully condescending take, Anthony.
A lot of great articles on Charlie’s Substack page…..sign up! Reading thru them I can’t believe how many different players were in less than ideal condition last year and lost weight/added muscle/increased agility in the offseason—mentioned are CES, Fraley, Lodolo, Friedl, Abbott (TWENTY pounds lighter, gheesh). With this, the baserunning gaffes, the terrible April records, Krall mentioning accountability, man it really reflects poorly on David Bell. You have to think things can only get better.
Excellent. Thanks.
“I’m in the best shape of my life.” “He’s in the best shape of his pro career.” “Been working so hard on my conditioning this off-season.”
– Every spiring training since the dawn of baseball
Good times. I’ll definitely check out that page Sultan 🙂
Elly’s K rate will improve dramatically when we finally get robo umps. He gets burned by umps on low “strikes” far too often.
2 things stick out amongst various others.
1 – His height has many advantages, but the bigger strike zone is the big disadvantage. IF (and certainly the sooner the better) MLB goes to the digital strike zone it will be unusually advantageous to players 6’3″+. How you coach to that will be interesting, but between DJ and TF they should be best able to do so.
2 – As for EDLC’s free agency, I’ll be very surprised, but not shocked, if the Reds are able to buy a single year extension. There’s a narrow path, and it will likely involve a $55M+, record setting single season – one year beyond Soto’s AAV. Again, extremely unlikely, but barely possible.
Indeed, Elly’s height worked against him……and David Bell did him no favors either. Countless times Elly would have pitches called for strikes that were below the knees (which Bell can easily see from the dugout) and Bell would stand idly by. Drove me nuts so I could imagine how it would feel knowing your manager doesn’t have your back.
I wonder what would happen if he changed his stance? Maybe lessen the distance of his strike zone? I know that’s highly unlikely as it takes years to get used to something like this, but maybe it would help.
I am no Bell apologist, but this take is wrong. He constantly fought with the umps about balls/strikes. I’d say he had their backs more than the avg manager.
I can’t really blame Bell too much on this one. It takes very little to get tossed arguing balls and strikes from the bench. You pick your spots. I will give it to you that Bell seemed to pick his spots poorly.
This is a very good analysis but at the same time could seem even obvious. The good hitters normally make swing more on the strikezone and less swing outside of that zone. Additionally, they have pretty good contact rates on pitches in the strikezone. While they are avoiding make swings out of the zone, they have more chance to walk too. In resume, Elly should do 3 things:
1.- To select pitches in the strike zone to make a swing more often.
2.- To increase the contact rate on swings made in the strike-zone.
3.- To Keep agressive to avoid getting struck out on strikes being seen.
Is there a breakdown on his (EDLC, of course) hitting on fastballs (in and out of the Strikezone) and breaking balls (in and out of the strike zone)?
Left handed versus right handed? He’s a switch hitter, of course.
Elly is a much better left handed hitter than right handed, and I would be curious if that skew showed up in his handedness at the plate.
I think guys chase a lot of “out of the zone” fast balls, especially with two strikes. Sometimes it is just an attempt to protect the plate on a pitch that they are not sure will be a ball or strike.
Another thing that Elly and the other young guys need to work on (in my humble opinion, after watching baseball a long time), is situational hitting. Especially hitting with two strikes.
This is something that is REALLY hard to persuade hitters to do, especially young guys who were usually the best player on the field (as kids and in the minors). Shorten your swing with two strikes, to protect the plate and prevent striking out.
I don’t council working walks all the time, but a walk is better than a strikeout. And an opposite field dinker of a single is better than yanking the ball right to the infielder, or striking out.
Technically, yes, that data is available for someone to break down. I’m not going to do it, though. It would take far more work than it’s worth (at least to me).
As noted – there’s not a place where you can just get that data all lumped together. You’ve gotta know where to get the raw data, grab it, then manually tally it all up. It’s a real process.
Where did you say you get the raw data, Doug? (Sorry if that’s in the article…)
You’ve got to be able to download the raw data from the game files from Gameday. They are JSON files, which you then need to know how to import into whatever software you would use to create a database (I use excel, but most people are using something else). Then you gotta know how to parse all of that data from what it is tracking. And here’s the fun part – there isn’t exactly a tutorial out there for you. You just kind of gotta figure it out on your own.
But on the bright side – I actually needed to download the minor league game files tonight for Cooper Bowman’s AA/AAA stuff for this year and the API doesn’t seem to be working right now anyways. Technology sucks when it doesn’t work.
Doug, thanks for the reply. Honestly, it was more of a rhetorical question, because I think there is more here than meets the eye. I don’t have the time myself to look up the data and parse it out to answer my own questions.
But I think that the problems with ELDC might solve themselves with more major league experience.
Perhaps we tend to forget just how short a time EDLC has been playing professional baseball, including the minor leagues.
He only played a little more than half a season of ML baseball in 2023, and played a whole season at the ML level in 2024. He’s a smart guy. People dwell on his “mistakes”, but he is trying to see how much he can do, and what his limits are. I hope he gets some better coaching and advice than he got in 2024.
So many in here talking about free agency or trading him away.
Just let us have some joy in our lives. You do not have to bring up something like that every time we talk about the guy.
+500,000
And I never give away that many points lightly, Frankie. We ride this pony as far as we can and enjoy it every step of the way.
1000000 for each of you, Frankie and Mark.
I’m just glad the Reds have a superstar player in the making, along with new field management led by Terry Francona.
Yes and yes. Lets enjoy ELDC while he is here. The Reds signed Votto which was a surprise. Maybe they will sign ELDC. Personally – I don’t think the Dodgers can keep this up and believe MLB will have to do something soon to discourage delayed salaries
We’re so ingrained to believe Reds won’t spend money that we all fear the day he’ll be gone and we won’t get enough for him, blah, blah, blah.
If we were a Dodgers or Yankees fan, this wouldn’t even come up. It’s the nature of an assumedly (closed books warrant skepticism) low revenu franchise, penny-pinching ownership group and general franchis history, post-1990 world series.
I hope these hitting coaches improve EDLC, but without degrading something dramatically. Many times we here of players with modified swing or stance and think oh man, they’re gonna really tear it up this year, and then they get worse overall. Maybe the K’s go down, but the HRs or hits regress quite a bit.
I’d love to see us extend EDLC. It’s risky, as we know puitting alot of money in one player on a lower payroll team can mean the pocketbook is zipped shut for a couple of years (doesn’t have to be, but usually is). So if EDLC doesn’t become the stud, we’re gonna have subpar hitters/pitchers dotted around the roster and thus a mediocre or losing team.
Excited for 2025, hoping EDLC rocks, McClain returns to 2023 form (a doubles machine) and Austin Hays surprises to make the 1-6 on our team darn good and productive. We need positive WAR from Candeleiro, that would help.
“I hope these hitting coaches improve EDLC, but without degrading something dramatically. Many times we here of players with modified swing or stance and think oh man, they’re gonna really tear it up this year, and then they get worse overall. Maybe the K’s go down, but the HRs or hits regress quite a bit.”
This is spot on. Lou Pinella messed up Paul O’Neill by trying to turn him into a pure power hitter. Thankfully, the results weren’t too bad as in 1991 O’Neill went to his first All-Star game. The Yankees undid Lou’s changes and basically fixed him. As we know, he became an excellent overall hitter, with decent power.
O’Neill to the Yankees for a damaged Roberto Kelly still bugs me. It was doubly hard with O’Neill being born and raised in Columbus.
Excited to see what the revised coaching can do for him. Have to keep reminding myself how young he is.
Is it gametime yet?
I’m not quite done shoveling the snow. Game time seems remote.
We got smacked with 4″ or so here Dayton (OH) way in about 4 to 5 hours on Sunday morning when they were predicting 1-3″. And I see it has started to “spritz” this AM (2/19) which is how things started on Sunday.
At least our drive is cleared and I got out yesterday despite the cold and replenished some stuff we were getting low on.
Less than four days (until the fake games start)
So, essentially, what all the data compiled shows is that EDLC should “swing at strikes”. That phrase is so old that it can be described as an adage. But, I digress. I was hoping to read some mention about the type or style of swing that many of today’s ballplayers are employing. The “all or nothing”,”lift and separate”, “going for the downs”, even with two strikes “home run derby” swing. Dipping that back shoulder and flying open that front side has made it a lot easier on pitchers in what should be a “payoff” moment. Hopefully, the new staff will be nurturing hitters with an approach that keeps the barrel in the hitting zone longer. The result will likely be more balls in play, more runners advancing on the bases and more runs scored.
Another old phrase: See the ball, hit the ball today probably reads, If you see the ball, swing and you might hit the ball.
Tremendous article, Doug! Really appreciate the deep dive. I do agree that looking at Elly’s “handedness” swings vs non-swings may also be enlightening, and hopefully the Reds are doing that after every at bat, every game, every month… Hope, and Spring, both start in March, just like Baseball*
*It shouldn’t be before April and the Reds should always have the first game, and he the only game on the first day, so help me!
What “antics,” specifically? Behaviors? Lack of what, knowledge? And why did they require punishment, ie sitting him down until he learns his lesson? As determined by who?
EDLC is considered to have a very, very high aptitude for learning *in general.*
Just 24 months ago, he was coming out of A/AA and getting ready to report to AA/AAA. In that time, he has become an All Star and also learned English so well he pushes himself to do live, national interviews in his second language.
Reply to Anthony, above
Please ignore placement down here.
Old guy who cannot see blindly stabbing at phone with one stubby finger … again
Your questions were worth posing twice, DaveCT.
You can say that again.
Exactly. He is hyped up bit I wouldn’t call him a show boat. He brings excitement to the game and his work ethic matches that. He’s a fun player and the type of player the Reds simply aren’t accustomed to. He’s an Eric Davis, Dibble, or Jr. type (even Jr might be a stretch as he was pretty lowkey despite a flashy glove and flashy swing). It’s a great change of pace and energy to have in the clubhouse when paired with those grinding types like McClain and Steer.
Does he not hustle? Does he malinger? Is he non compliant? Is he insubordinate? Even, does he give up at bats, or ‘take at bats off?’
The one critique i saw from his boss last season, David Bell, was that his concentration could lessen on defense. So, bench him for being an adolescent?
The reason this article from Doug is so very good is because it evades all insinuations of character, or even as i just did, human development, snd absolutely skewers the beating heart of the topic — the precise and imprecise science of swing decisions.
Doug, you should take this article nationally.
Hi Doug! When reading your data about how Elly doesn’t really swing at more pitches out of the zone than average but he makes far less contact on pitches out of the zone than average, I had another thought worth pondering. We’d obviously need to see all the raw pitch data to analyze what is really happening, but one theory may be that Elly is swinging at pitches that are further outside the zone than what some other players are swinging at. I’d also want to look at where Elly is in the count when he is swinging at pitches outside of the zone. For example, with 2-strikes on him is he doing any combination of the following: chasing sliders at his back foot, chasing a lot of change-ups well down and away, chasing fastballs well up and out of the zone?
It’s only a theory and I have to think that between the former players and the analytics department, someone has to have already thought about it. I thought it was worth mentioning here though.
For the record, I chased all of the above, which is why I never made it further than I did in baseball! Well, that and injuries.