The Cincinnati Reds are already staring down the kind of situation that keeps front offices up at night. They tried to get ahead of the curve with Elly De La Cruz - the kind of generational talent you don’t just wait around on - by offering him a deal that would’ve made him the highest-paid player in franchise history.
He turned it down. That alone speaks volumes about how Elly’s camp sees his future: not just as a star, but as a potential supernova in the baseball world.
Then came the jaw-dropper. On a podcast appearance, reporter C.
Trent Rosecrans casually floated the idea that De La Cruz “could be a billion-dollar player.” A billion.
With a “b.” That kind of number doesn’t just raise eyebrows - it rewires the entire conversation.
It reframes how the media talks about him, how the front office plans for him, and how fans start bracing themselves for a future where he’s wearing a different uniform.
But let’s pump the brakes for a second.
Elly De La Cruz is electric. He’s the most exhilarating athlete the Reds have had in years - maybe decades - and there’s not a single fan in Cincinnati who doesn’t feel the jolt when he steps into the box or takes off on the basepaths.
The tools are ridiculous. The ceiling?
Sky-high. But “billion-dollar player” isn’t about tools or potential.
It’s about sustained greatness. It’s about years of elite production, postseason heroics, global marketability, and the kind of week-to-week dominance that makes a player unavoidable.
Elly isn’t there yet. And that’s not a knock - it’s just the truth.
Right now, De La Cruz is still a work in progress. A thrilling, highlight-reel-making, chaos-bringing work in progress.
His game is loud in every sense - the exit velocity, the sprint speed, the cannon arm - but so are the rough edges. He’s still prone to swing-and-miss stretches, defensive miscues, and moments where the rawness of his game peeks through just as much as the brilliance.
That’s part of the package. It’s what makes him so fun - and so unpredictable.
To throw around a number like a billion, you’re essentially betting that those rough edges smooth out completely, that the MVP version of Elly becomes the norm, not the exception. That’s a huge leap - especially when he’s still in the early stages of his career arc.
And here’s the thing: the Reds don’t need to crank the pressure up to 11 just yet. They’re still trying to build a roster that makes staying in Cincinnati feel like more than just a paycheck.
That kind of team-building takes time, and it takes focus. Getting swept up in billion-dollar hypotheticals shifts the conversation away from what really matters: *How do the Reds win with Elly De La Cruz right now?
Because here’s the reality: this situation gets complicated even if Elly doesn’t become a billion-dollar player. If he’s “only” a perennial All-Star - a guy who’s consistently in the MVP conversation, even if he never wins one - that’s still the kind of player who can outgrow even the most aggressive franchise-record contract. And that’s a crossroads the Reds will eventually have to face.
So sure, maybe Rosecrans was trying to describe the ceiling. But Cincinnati doesn’t need ceiling talk at this point in the journey.
They need traction. They need to start stacking wins, building a foundation, and showing De La Cruz - and the rest of the league - that this is a place where stars don’t just shine, they stay.
Because the real danger for the Reds isn’t that Elly becomes a billion-dollar player. It’s that he becomes exactly what we already know he can be - and the team around him isn’t strong enough to keep the story from drifting toward a different city, a different jersey, and a different chapter.