{"id":479936,"date":"2026-02-17T05:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T05:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/479936\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T05:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T05:39:07","slug":"reds-elly-de-la-cruz-reveals-immense-change-to-his-body-for-2026-mlb-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/479936\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds&#8217; Elly De La Cruz reveals immense change to his body for 2026 MLB season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Elly De La Cruz has made a serious effort to avoid the nightmare summer he had in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/cincinnati-reds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cincinnati Reds<\/a>&#8216; star went a multi-month stretch of last season without hitting a single home run. Given his natural talent and athletic ability, that&#8217;s crazy.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s not planning to let it happen again.<\/p>\n<p>This offseason, De La Cruz added 15 pounds, putting him up to 217 pounds right now.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/cleveland-guardians\/news\/how-guardians-jose-ramirez-pace-cleveland-derek-jeter\/4f853a182bc8cfe42b7f0aa7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">How Jose Ramirez is on pace to become Cleveland&#8217;s Derek Jeter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He put in a detailed upper body plan and also just ate more, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/char_cliff\/status\/2023490637363114179\" rel=\"nofollow\">according to reporter Charlie Clifford<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Elly De La Cruz notes in Goodyear<\/p>\n<p>-Up to 217 LB, nearly 15 pounds heavier than 2025<br \/>-A lot of upper body work &amp; simply eating more<br \/>-No regrets on playing all 162 in &#8217;25 &amp; its a goal to do it again in &#8217;26<\/p>\n<p>On teaming up with Eugenio Suarez: &#8220;We can do some damage together.&#8221; <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TYgUFBwkcO\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/TYgUFBwkcO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Charlie Clifford (@char_cliff) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/char_cliff\/status\/2023490637363114179?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">February 16, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/san-francisco-giants\/news\/giants-luis-arraez-mlb-perfect-misfit-2026\/4a6c3688716a01c11edf6735\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Luis Arraez is MLB&#8217;s perfect misfit in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This generally has to feel like welcome news for Cincy fans.<\/p>\n<p>De La Cruz is a special ballplayer, but he also seems to have untapped potential that he can still reach, too.<\/p>\n<p>Adding some muscle and strength almost has to be a good thing when you consider the length of an MLB season. He needs to be able to hold up the whole way, and this should help.<\/p>\n<p>De La Cruz doesn&#8217;t take days off, either, and so the Reds want him at his physical best to ensure he can last throughout the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>This certainly should be a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p>More MLB news:<\/p>\n<p>                            <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elly De La Cruz has made a serious effort to avoid the nightmare summer he had in 2025.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-479936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479936","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=479936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}