Nearly a decade ago Javy Baez was the game's can't-take-your-eyes-off-him spectacle that Elly De La Cruz has become. Baez says ELDC must do one thing.
ATLANTA – He took the league by storm, this dynamic shortstop with defensive flair, raw speed and power, and a rare gift for elevating his game on the biggest stages, under the brightest lights.
His celebrity manager anointed him a centerpiece for a playoff-minded team, and he responded with consecutive All-Star appearances.
If it sounds familiar, maybe it’s because Javy Baez was Elly De La Cruz a baseball generation before De La Cruz was.
At least in the spectacle and sheer magnetism of their high-energy, high-powered games.
“Exciting baseball players,” said Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber, the Middletown product and Baez teammate during Baez’s eye-popping rise during the Chicago Cubs’ playoff years under Joe Maddon – eventually earning Baez a nine-figure contract with the Detroit Tigers.
“Guys who are stealing bases, making great plays in the field, sick tags, and then obviously doing the offensive damage that they do and creating havoc while doing it,” Schwarber said. “That’s exciting for baseball to see a guy like Elly who’s got that talent. And he’s showing it on an (annual) basis now that he can be at an All-Star level and keep doing it.”
Javy Baez's tip for Elly De La Cruz's one flaw
Baez, a National League Championship Series MVP during the Cubs’ drought-busting run in 2016 and back-to-back All-Star in 2018-19, has watched De La Cruz from afar just enough to appreciate the fearless, spectacular nature of his game that offers vague echoes of the high-flying, pea-throwing, big-swinging way Baez captured the attention of baseball fans across the country – especially of kids – almost a decade ago.
All those jaw-dropping plays.
Followed a little too often by ball-dropping plays.
That last part is the one thing Baez picks as the thing keeping De La Cruz – still just 23 – from being at the top of the game at his position already.
“Sometimes you get out of the routine, and a regular ground ball you want to throw 100 (mph) to first, and you throw it away,” said Baez, who has returned to the All-Star game after a six-year absence – at his third position, centerfield.
“That’s part of the process,” said Baez, who won a 2020 Gold Glove at short. “He’s got big range, big arm, big speed. So he needs to prove how much he needs to use (those tools). That’s why I tell my teammates to be themselves, and when they make mistakes, be honest with yourself and find out why you made that mistake.”
Terry Francona: 'nothing (Elly De La Cruz) can't do'
If anything, De La Cruz’s growth arc since a two-month slump to finish his debut season in 2023 has been remarkable for his improvement at the plate last year and in the incremental ways he has improved much more of his game this year, cutting down on base-running mistakes and strikeouts while scaling back some of the more aggressive sprints on fly balls that tended to endanger his outfielders.
“I think he is making a concerted effort to being a winning player,” Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona said. “I think he’s always going to have to fight, especially at his age, his ceiling. Because there’s nothing he can’t do.
“My message to him has always been, ’In the confines of winning baseball, that’s where I want to see your tools.’ Because then it gets pretty special. And he’s trying.
“He’s very conscientious. He wants to be one of the very best players in the game.”
Teammates and staff see that much in his insistence on playing every day, even through leg issues this year, and a behind-the-scenes work ethic that rivals anyone in the room.
It’s a big part of why he’s the youngest Reds player to earn multiple All-Star selections before his 24th birthday since Johnny Bench did it four times (1968-71).
“The way I see him, he can make himself even better than he is right now,” said Baez, who learned the hard way some of the lessons he’s talking about. “It’s just about practicing and cleaning small things up. And that will be huge for this guy. Keep working hard, which I know he does; you can see in his body and body language and everything he does.”
How Elly De La Cruz pushes to play every game
And the improvement he’s already made. And the drive.
“I’ll be long retired and still watching him probably play every (expletive) inning of every game,” Francona said. “He was yelling at me (last week), that next time he DH’s come talk to him. I said, ‘Well, it’s Freddie’s idea. Go yell at him.’ “
“He did,” bench coach Freddie Benavides said. “He gave me that (angry) face that he gives me.”
Cubs centerfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, a first-time All-Star at 23, said De La Cruz is one of his favorite players to watch.
The young Cubs star said the same thing as a kid about his favorite player, Baez, before he was traded for his idol in a trade-deadline deal in 2021 when PCA was a second-year Mets minor-leaguer.
“Javy was part of pushing more flair (in the game),” Crow-Armstrong said. “Elly does it in such a way that’s authentic to him.”
Elly De La Cruz in centerfield?
Javy as Elly before Elly? Not so much, PCA said.
“He’s a 6-6, switch-hitting shortstop that could go play centerfield, too, if we’re being honest,” he said. “I don’t really see that many similarities with them at all.”
Wait. Centerfield? Hmm.
“I think they’re just both guys that like to go have fun playing baseball and doing it their way,” Crow-Armstrong said.
Maybe it’s the fun factor, the energy, the baseball magnetism that make others, such as Schwarber, think of a young Baez when they see a young De La Cruz.
The way kids scream wherever they go/went – “Elly!” “Javy!” – holding up signs, pleading for autographs. Going crazy for a smile in their direction.
De La Cruz certainly has that in common – the swag and charisma and can’t-take-your-eyes-off-them electricity.
“I love the kid. Everybody does,” Francona said. “I was told even in November, you won’t believe how people gravitate towards him. And it’s true, man.
“He’s got the personality. He’s got the flair. He’s good for baseball.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Javy Baez on what's left for Cincinnati Reds All-Star Elly De La Cruz
Category: Baseball
