{"id":415301,"date":"2026-01-17T12:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T12:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415301\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T12:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T12:30:09","slug":"reds-elly-de-la-cruz-turned-down-potential-team-record-contract-last-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415301\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds\u2019 Elly De La Cruz Turned Down Potential Team-Record Contract Last Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5k\">Shortstop Elly De La Cruz is the Reds\u2019 best position player since longtime first baseman Joey Votto, so it stands to reason that De La Cruz should be compensated like Votto.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5n\">However, the two-time All-Star appears to be thinking beyond early-2010s salary figures. On Friday, Cincinnati president of baseball operations Nick Krall revealed at the Reds\u2019 fan fest that De La Cruz turned down the largest contract offer in Reds history in the spring of 2025.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5q\">\u201cWe made Elly an offer that would\u2019ve made him the highest-paid Red ever,\u201d Krall said via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6978288\/2026\/01\/16\/cincinnati-reds-elly-de-la-cruz-contract-extension-tabled\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s not where he is and you respect that. It\u2019s their career. You keep going and you keep working on what you can do today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">\u201cI let my agent take care of all of that,\u201d De La Cruz\u2014a client of superagent Scott Boras\u2014said via Rosecrans.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5w\">De La Cruz, 24, is due an estimated $820,000 in salary in 2026\u2014his final season before becoming eligible for arbitration.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5z\">In \u201825, he slashed .264\/.336\/.440 with 22 home runs and 86 RBIs, making a second All-Star team and recording 3.6 bWAR. That followed a ballyhooed 2024 breakout, in which he led baseball with 67 steals and finished in the top 10 of the National League MVP voting.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"62\">Votto signed a 10-year contract worth $225 million in April 2012, which he validated with four top-10 MVP finishes in the next six seasons.<\/p>\n<p>More MLB on Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shortstop Elly De La Cruz is the Reds\u2019 best position player since longtime first baseman Joey Votto, so&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-415301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}