Fantasy Baseball: Of course Elly De La Cruz was playing through a significant injury in the 2025 second half

Elly De La Cruz has been a bit of a lightning rod in Fantasy Baseball over the years, but at the mid-way point of the 2025 season, it sure looked like the boosters and believers were right: This guy wasn't just one of the most exciting talents in baseball; he was one of the very best all-around players in the game.

By the time the All-Star break rolled around, De La Cruz had taken a step forward in pretty much every way possible. He had played every game and was on pace for a monstrous season, hitting .284/.359/.495 with a 30-homer, 42-steal, 225 combined runs and RBI pace. He had cut his strikeout rate to a very manageable 24.3% rate and was the No. 5 player in Fantasy.

De La Cruz kept right on hitting for the final 10 days of July, but things fell apart for him shortly after – he hit just .224 in August and was even worse in September, ultimately putting up just a .236/.303/.363 line in the second half. The strikeout rate jumped back up to 28.1% and he stopped impacting the ball with authority, with his xwOBA dropping to just .273 and cratering his overall numbers. Even the speed, which has always been there for De La Cruz, disappeared, as he ran at just a 30-steal pace. 

Because he was hurt. 

Of course, he was hurt.

We heard whispers of De La Cruz playing through a "nagging" quad injury, but it wasn't until the past few days that the club finally confirmed the extent of the injury. Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall was talking to the Cincinnati Reds Hot Stove League show Wednesday, where he was asked about De La Cruz's defensive regression in 2025, and Krall denied that the team was considering moving De La Cruz from shortstop and noted that De La Cruz's second-half struggles had a very simple explanation: 

"Towards the end of July, he was dealing with a partially torn quad. And he has been rehabbing; he was at the ballpark today," Krall said. "He's been rehabbing this whole offseason. To his credit, he played every day. He tried to grind through it. He tried to play through it."

Krall tried to walk that quote back in an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer the next day, noting that when he said "partial tear on the radio," he meant "strain" and that it was "more nagging than serious." A strain is, of course, a partial tear, and as RedLegNation.com notes, it's hard to make sense of a "nagging" injury that also still requires treatment a month and a half after the season and four months after the injury was initially suffered. 

De La Cruz is personally to be commended for his willingness to push through this injury, and with the Reds chasing a playoff spot, the team's decision to let him is understandable. But whether it is understandable or defensible isn't what I'm interested in here. 

What I'm interested in is the confirmation that De La Cruz's second-half slump wasn't just a slump. It wasn't just something that happens, a sign of the inherent volatility of his profile. It was also, very clearly, a result of him playing through an injury he probably should have taken time off. That has been my assumption since September, but getting that confirmation does make it much easier to figure out how to value De La Cruz in 2026. 

Am I saying we should just take his first half at face value and throw out the second half entirely? 

Kind of. 

De La Cruz was clearly starting to figure things out. You could see that with the much-improved plate discipline, overall swing decisions, and contact skills, which he was managing without sacrificing the high-end exit velocities he has always been known for. Yes, he was running less than in 2024, and I suspect the days of 60-plus steal upside from De La Cruz are probably gone – not because he isn't capable, but because it just doesn't make sense for the Reds to risk injury with their best player. 

But hey, he was still on a 30-homer, 40-steal pace, something only Jose Ramirez actually managed in 2025. If De La Cruz can keep that strikeout rate on the right side of 25% like he was in that first half, a 40-homer season isn't out of the question as he continues to mature. 

Now that we have confirmation of the nature and extent of the injury in the second half, I'm much more willing to give De La Cruz a pass for his struggles. I'm expecting 30 homers and 40 steals in 2025, and probably a pretty good batting average, too. On a Reds offense that should continue to improve, that should also make 100-plus runs and 100-ish RBI a reasonable expectation, too. De La Cruz has slipped a tiny bit in early NFBC drafts to an 8.22 ADP, behind Ramirez, Juan Soto, Tarik Skubal, and Corbin Carroll; that's the right range for him, but I think I might take De La Cruz over all of them. If what he showed in the first half of last season was real, he deserves it. And, given his age and prodigious skill set, another step forward to the truly elite tier isn't out of the question.