When you think of baseball lifers, Terry Francona is one of the first names that comes to mind. He’s in his first year as manager of the Cincinnati Reds but Francona has been around Major League Baseball, literally, his entire life, as he is the son of 15-year MLB veteran, Tito Francona.
The younger Francona has been employed in MLB since 1981 as either a player, coach, manager, or within the front office of various teams. But on Tuesday, he saw something he had never seen previously in his 45 years in MLB.
That something involved Reds’ superstar, Elly De La Cruz, who burst on the scene as a rookie in 2023, made his first All-Star appearance in 2024, and is one of the favorites to win the National League MVP award in 2025. During a Spring Training versus the Colorado Rockies, De La Cruz displayed both his otherworldly speed and instincts, much to the awe of his new manager.
After opening the bottom of the fourth inning with an infield single to the third baseman, De La Cruz then advanced to second base when Reds’ batter, Austin Hays, was hit by a pitch. With runners on first and second, Cincinnati then executed a double steal, with Hays ending up on second base and De La Cruz ending up on third base.
Or so we thought.
The catcher knew he had no chance of throwing out the speedy De La Cruz, so he instead tried to catch Hays at second. However, during the ensuing throw to second, De La Cruz shockingly broke for home without the ball leaving the infield. The second baseman who received the ball then threw home with hopes of the catcher tagging out De La Cruz but there was no play at the plate as De La Cruz touched home in stride and without even the need to slide.
The play was originally scored by a stolen base for De La Cruz, and Hays, with the former then advancing home on the throw. However, the official scorer of the game then changed the play, awarding two stolen bases to De La Cruz on a single play, which had his manager, Francona, astonished at what he just witnessed.
Everyone knows about De La Cruz’s breathtaking speed as he led the majors with 67 stolen bases last season and ranked second in the NL with 10 triples. However, Francona made sure to point out De La Cruz’s intuition as well in noticing that he had an opportunity to take home on the throw to second. Those instincts are uncommon for most players, let alone for someone who just turned 23 in January and has only played in 258 MLB games.
That play was just a single play but it’s somewhat a microcosm of what De La Cruz has been doing throughout Spring Training. He is absolutely mashing the ball with a slash line of .500/.586/1.000 through his first 10 exhibitions. Among all MLB players in Spring Training, he ranks fifth in batting average, fourth in on-base percentage, fourth in slugging percentage, and fourth in OPS (1.586).
The third-year player also has three home runs, three doubles, and eight RBI. He’s near the top of the leaderboards in both stolen bases (five) and runs scored (nine), ranking second in the former and third in the latter. Two of those homers came in the same game—from both sides of the plate—as his two dingers on Feb. 22 combined for 859 feet. In that one game, De La Cruz matched his total for home runs hit in last year’s Spring Training.
He said he tinkered with his batting stance for this season as he’s now standing more upright, with the goal that it would lead to fewer strikeouts. That’s the biggest blemish on De La Cruz’s profile thus far as he led MLB with 218 strikeouts a year ago. However, an out is an out, regardless if it comes via strikeout, groundout, flyout, or otherwise, and De La Cruz brings much more to the table than he takes off it.
Francona is also clearly comfortable with De La Cruz at the plate as he’s slotted the shortstop into the coveted No. 3 hole during Spring Training, after he only hit from the 2-hole or 6-hole in his 159 games as a starter last season.
The Reds are hoping the remarkable talents of De La Cruz can lift the franchise to something it hasn’t seen in nearly three decades, and that’s a postseason series win. The 29 years Cincinnati has gone without winning a playoff series is the longest active in baseball and 10 years longer than any other team’s drought. The franchise also hasn’t won a single postseason game since 2012—when De La Cruz was 10 years old—but an extraordinary talent like De La Cruz at least brings the Reds’ fan base hope for 2025.
