After dominating the bottom of the list, Elly De La Cruz saw some teammates join him on the list in the top half. But the Cincinnati Reds shortstop is back for the 6th time and on top of the list for the entire 2025 season. If we learned anything from Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux a few decades ago it is that everyone loves the long ball. Perhaps that wasn’t quite the takeaway from the two Cy Young Award winners, but long home runs have been something people have talked about for over a hundred years. Only in the last decade or so, though, have we truly been able to measure their distance with *some* accuracy. Thanks to ball tracking in the big leagues we can compare 1-to-1 how far a baseball went. Every week for the next few months we’re going to be counting down the 10 longest home runs hit by the Cincinnati Reds in the 2025 season.
The longest home run hit by a Cincinnati Reds in 2025 came on May 27th when Elly De La Cruz hit his 11th home run of the season, sending on deep into the evening sky in Kansas City against the Royals.
The Video
The Metrics Behind The Blast
Distance Metrics
Distance: 451 Feet
Reds Ranks: 1st
Major League Baseball Rank: 65th (tied)
Elly De La Cruz Rank: 1
Other Metrics
Launch Angle: 25°
Exit Velocity: 112.5 MPH
Bat Speed: 77.2 MPH
Reds Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 5th (out of 167)
Reds Bat Speed Rank (home runs only): 26th (of 157)
MLB Exit Velocity Rank (home runs only): 156th (out of 5544)
MLB Bat Speed Rank (home runs only): 1515th (out of 5288)
The Story Behind The Blast
After getting ahead 1-0 in the count, Elly De La Cruz got a fastball from Taylor Clarke that was called for up and away on the edge of the zone. Clarke got the height of the pitch right, but instead of the outside corner he left it in the middle of the plate and the Cincinnati Reds shortstop made him pay for it. The home run led off the 6th inning, landed in the waterfall in right-center at Kauffman Stadium, and broke a 2-2 tie to give Cincinnati the lead.
For the Reds it was their 3rd solo home run of the game. For De La Cruz it was his second of the night. His first home run was also an absolute blast and ranked 7th on the list of longest home runs this year by a Red at 436 feet. Cincinnati would add four runs in the final two innings to win the game 7-2 and get back to the .500 mark at 28-28.
After going through a bit of a slump earlier in the month, De La Cruz had been on fire of late and he kept on riding this hot streak for a few more weeks as he hit .361/.452/.778 with six doubles and eight home runs in 20 games from May 24th through June 15th.
You can follow along the entire series here.
Hope Elly will smash a 500-ft one next season…
I remember that shot and Cowboy’s reaction to the distance.
Thanks again, Doug, for this enjoyable series of articles to help get us through the doldrums of the year.
Almost to “hope springs eternal” time … right? 😐
They do say that hope springs eternal. I don’t know how much I trust ’em though.
So very true …
Here’s a +500,000 to start the year off right.
Elly needs to hit 40-50 HRs this season if this team is to go anywhere. The offense is weak without running the table on bounce back candidates. And no team ever runs the table. When the fans are down to screaming Conforto or hays, you know how dim the next season looks.
I would not be terribly upset if they resigned Hays, depending on the amount. But he probably wants 3 years, $25 Million, at least. No dice to that noise. We already have the Ke’Bryan Hayes albatros around the salary budget neck.
No to Conforto, no way do they need him at this stage of his career. He has the smell of Wil Myers about him.
I roll with the young guys rather than signing Hays again. He’d just be blocking them like he did last year.
I like how everyone is banking on health. “If everyone stays healthy”. When was the last time that happened? But say by some miracle it did happen. You still have the same line up.
Same lineup, but if they’re healthy, they might hit better. For that matter, who’s to say that the mythical middle of the order power hitter the Reds acquire doesn’t get injured?
I just dont think EDLC is a 40-50 hr guy. I think his last 2 seasons are what he is. .250-.260 with 25 hr.
My hope for this season, is having an offseason and spring training where the young guys can start the season with a familiar hitting coach and manager.
I think that was a bit of lost narrative last season, the changes an adapting the players needed to make as well as the coaching stuff learning their new players.
I liken it to after we traded for KBH…his first fielding attempt was an error I believe, and it took some time for he and Elly to learn how to play next to each other.
With the health we’re counting on, and players being able to play up to their abilities, I think the team will be stronger than what many commenters think.
If he gets the protection, and is allowed to be himself, Elly will be the biggest part of it.
I don’t really think the hitting coach, Valaika, had much of an impact on the Reds’ poor hitting.
Elly was hurt after late June.
McLain never really did get it going. Was it his shoulder? Will this year be better?
Friedl got over played and run down. Needs to get a spell in CF.
Steer also had a bum should early on. Hope he has “healed”, and shoulder is better. I don’t think we have heard anything about that.
Noelvi Marte might be starting to emerge as an offensive threat.
Don’t honestly know what to expect of Sal Stewart. I hope people don’t expect too much in his first full season with the Reds (if he makes the team out of ST). Seems like a good guy and has a good hitting approach.
And then….there is the 3 ring circus out in Left Field.
If the team can stay on the field without major injuries to these main guys….could be a better team than last year. But will that be enough?
I mean, health was are biggest adversary last season, even if just to see are budding young players struggling to just stay in the lineup, fighting through injuries.
I’m not entirely sold on Chris’ philosophy on hitting, and how could anyone really see it, honestly, with how we performed.
I’m referring more to coming into spring training without spending it adjusting their swings to a new coaching / hitting philosophy…with said staff understanding their players, their own goals, and mental makeup more astutely.
CallowayPost, there is also the issue of whether we had/have the right types of hitters for the current higher contact/lower power approach. Last year, i thought we had some (Friedl) but not enough.
The Mariners’ announcers (who are very good, by the way) made a point last year that the Reds were an odd offensive team, hitting with very little power but not very high contact. That’s what got me thinking, Well, they probably don’t have enough of the types of hitters they need. As they were basically at or near the bottom of any stat that’s power related, yet still high up in K’s would be a starting point to evaluate this offense. Even still, given the bludgeoning we took against the Dodgers, how much does it matter?
A lot of people think that you can remove the word “if” from the Reds preseason analysis by signing a big-name bat. Moustakus, Candelario and Will Meyers prove that it doesn’t. I’m prepared as a fan to bank on these slash line improvements, 2025 > 2026, sorted by probability.
Player
EDLC: .264/.336/.440 > .270/.350/.495 (more rest and maturity)
Marte: .263/.300/.448 > .275/.325/.475 (healthy and settled in RF)
Sal: (too-small sample) > .265/.330/.450 (less than India rookie year)
Matt : .220/.300/.343 > .255/.327/.465 (halfway back to 2023 level)
StevO: .231/.316/.421 > .258/.338/.444 (138 GS @ 2024 level, walk year)
Steer: .238/.312/.411 > .255/.334/.427 (halfway back to 2023 level)
Friedl: .261/.364/.378 > .261/.364/.378 (basically replicates good year)
allDH: .242/.315/.406 > .242/.315/406 (basically replicates bad year)
Hinds, CES, HRod, Dunn > .250/.325/.450 (1 of the 4 makes a big leap)
So everyone in the line up stays healthy and improves? So no injuries? no regression? Good luck with that.
In all fairness to you, the Red’s front office seems to be banking on the same thing.
I love stats as much as the next guy, although I don’t quite understand the more in depth stats as my math skills leave a lot to be desired. I think those stats aren’t outside the realm of possibility.
I’m more of a “What I see”, and an “in between the ears” kind guy, and that’s how I experience baseball.
What I saw last season, as it sounds like the Mariner’s broadcast team witnessed, is a team that’s hard to pin down exactly what made them tic in 2025.
Our pitching staff had an identity, but our offense, to my eyes, felt like they had no real sense of who they were. Sure, they talked about the next man mentality, but that’s literally the game, as much as it is the business model of a car wash.
They had no real player to coalesce around as a leader, they rarely seemed like there was a grand plan at the plate, and half the at bats were predictable from strike one.
A full spring training, with a lot of the same returning players and coaches, and familiarity with one another, and I think this team begins to form an identity. Sure, I’d love a masher in the lineup, and we need player leadership, but these players are still kids even though it’s hard to see them that way. They live in a world most of don’t live in, see, or understand.
Tito can get through to them being a great communicator, and in his second season I think he does. He was brought on not just to fill out a lineup card, but to nurture those intangibles between the ears.
I don’t think there was ever a problem with Terry Francona “getting through” to the team.
I just think that these guys, the Reds, don’t always execute as well as they should, up to their potential.
Stephenson….sometimes looks like a good hitter, sometimes looks lost. What’s with him?
What if Sal Stewart can play a decent 3rd base this year, and Ke’Bryan Hayes hits to the back of his baseball card…which is pretty poor.
The ’73 Reds had Denis Menke playing 3rd for part of the season, and he was “out on the interstate”, meaning, he hit something like 0.190 for the year.
So they had Dan Driessen, called up from AAA, play 3rd base, and mediocre at best. But he did hit. Playing mostly against RH pitching, he hit .301.
The ’75 Reds (won 108 game) were waddling around .500 into May, with Pete Vuckovich, good glove, no hit, playing 3rd base. Sparky moved Pete Rose from LF to 3rd base and bought in George Foster to play LF full time. From there they went something like 86 – 32.
Even those relatively strong offensive teams could not really stand for such offensive weak hitting at 3rd base.
The management and leadership of those teams was much more energized and inspired to win, and especially the players.
I don’t know where the “magic” is going to come from, but I don’t think the 2026 Reds, as presently configured, have that “magic”…..yet.
Mostly untrue about Menke. He started at 3B in April and May, but Reds called up Driessen who played 3B in June, July, August, and September. He was regular 3B not just platoon against RHP.
Menke struggled at bat in 1973, but his OBP was .368 that year. He was a decent 3B in 1972. He was NL All-Star in 1970 and 1971.
Vukovich started early on in 1975 but not into mid-May. Other Reds such as Doug Flynn and Darrell Chaney played 3B instead, before Rose took over later in May.
May I suggest that you do research on Baseball Reference.
PS Pete Vuckovich was a Brewers SP in 1980s.
John Vukovich was Reds INF in 1975 and briefly starting 3B
(Clipped)
He actually began the 1975 season as the Reds’ starting third baseman but was benched in early April after hitting only .250 with three extra base hits and only one RBI. The Reds moved Pete Rose to third base and platooned Dan Driessen and George Foster in left at first, but Foster eventually won the left-field job full time. Vukovich spent the remainder of his time with the Reds as a late-inning defensive replacement before being traded later in 1975.
The 1973 and 1975 Reds also got little offensively out of the shortstop position. This team will get plenty of offense out of EDLC. Concepcion had a .679 OPS in 1975, with an OPS+ of 88. Ke’Bryan Hayes has a career OPS of .675, with an OPS+ of 86.
Concepcion in 1973 was good offensively, but only played about 60% of the time, with 357 PAs. Darrel Chaney got 263 PAs and had an OPS of .487. (The two of them combined for 24 SS errors in 1973.)
If the Reds got Elly’s offensive production at 3B and Ke’Bryan’s glove and offense at 33, nobody would bat an eye. But for some reason, it’s forbidden for the Reds to get the same production out of two players, if their positions are changed.
I have always been high on Noelvi Marte’s bat, but after about two weeks of watching him “play” 3B, it was clear to me that he had to be moved to RF, which they finally did. The Reds went from having the worst 3B defense in the league to the best. Plus, Hayes has a career .783 OPS in GABP, including one of .800 last season.
Yeah, the Reds would be better off with Mike Schmidt at third base.
+10000000, OBE.
Correcting one error by me above. Menke was All-Star in 1969 and 1970. He had 90 and 92 RBI those two years.
Adding context for Vukovich. He started 14 games in April 1975 for the Reds. He played 31 games total. He was sent down to Indy AAA then traded to Phillies in August 1975.
Neither Menke nor Vukovich ever got close to winning Gold Glove. Hayes has won two Gold Gloves.