It isn’t a secret that the Reds want to retain Elly De La Cruz’s services, in fact, we found out last year that they tried to extend him. More details have emerged this week coming out of The Athletic’s C Trent mouth this time, and we know now that the Reds offered Elly an HISTORIC deal, the biggest ever. He…unfortunately…rejected it. Let’s dig into the why of him rejecting it. Subscribe to our Newsletter by using the popup or the form below!
Elly De La Cruz Rejects Reds Offer
His agent is Scott Boras. He will NEVER sign a pre-arbitration deal. None of Scott Boras’ clients do. It’s why you keep seeing me post that no deal will get done until Elly gets rid of Scott Boras, and there had been rumors that he was pitching to do just that, but members of his family convinced him otherwise.
If you read our content regularly like you all should (subscribe to the newsletter!) then you have seen me say that there’s some crippling realities to Elly De La Cruz’s future money status. He, like many young Dominican players, fell victim to what is quite literally a very much legal scam. He signed over 25% of his future earnings over to a company that lent him money in exchange for future contract earnings. Yes, a borderline scam, but one that is very legal. This will have serious, serious effects to what and where Elly signs. It’s unclear if Elly has to forfeit endorsements or not, but it usually is only guaranteed money contractually, so likely not.
Elly Likely Wants To Play In A Big Market
I don’t think it’s a secret: he’s said it numerous times, he loves the lights. He usually plays better under the lights/spotlight as well – it’s almost a certainty that Elly De La Cruz, unless he completely diminishes all of his talents overnight, will test free agency and land in a big market like New York or one of the California teams.
He hasn’t came out and said, “Yeah, I won’t entertain playing in Cincinnati a long time,” but him continuing to employ Scott Boras to represent him with a historic offer from the Cincinnati Reds says plenty to me, and it should say plenty to you, too. If guys like Bobby Witt Jr, who are arguably more complete players than Elly, are signing these mega pre-arb deals, there’s plenty of concern as a Cincinnati Reds fan right now suggesting Elly won’t entertain playing here outside of team control. That means the window is even tighter.
What Was The Offer?
It’s only known that it was (or would have been, if signed) the largest Cincinnati Reds contract of all time. Yes, that means it would surpass Joey Votto’s 10/$225M deal he signed in 2012 just after winning MVP. In today’s market, that isn’t surprising, but regardless, it’s pretty surprising that the Reds even offered this type of deal to Elly granted they love running around acting poor. And let’s be real, Elly hasn’t really proven his value enough to be considered at 10/$225M on a small market team. He’s still committing plenty of mistakes in the field. Yes, a gamble worth taking, but it’s just a little bit surprising.
Conclusion
Enjoy Elly De La Cruz while you can, folks. Unfortunately, our favorite team doesn’t feel the same way we do when it comes to urgency and building a great team while he’s here making minimum. Once the year 2028-29 hits, you can all but guarantee he’ll be MLB’s biggest headline all offseason and trade deadline long about ‘WHERE WILL ELLY BE TRADED TO?!’ – it’s easy to see now.
We have him under contract/team control, through 2029. He enters Arb 1 in 2027, so he is ‘cheap’ for one more full season. The Reds won’t even go above $130,000,000 in active payroll this year and have put nobody relevant in front of Elly to give him a better chance in the box. Truthfully, I don’t blame him for not signing here. This team hasn’t shown a prioritization to win with aggressiveness; it’s not why he isn’t signing here, but I’m sure it’s some of the weight of why he won’t fire Scott Boras, which is the only chance the Reds have at extending him.
The extension won’t happen unless Scotty Boras is out of the picture. With that said, do me a favor, Reds fans: pray to the baseball gods that you wake up to a headline of Elly De La Cruz switching agents. When/If that happens…there’ll be great reason to fill yourself with hopium of Elly sticking in Cincinnati. Until then…don’t buy those expensive $200 jerseys unless you use my Fanatics code to do so!
