Why Isn’t Elly De La Cruz Swinging Hard?
- Ian Altenau
- 1 minute ago
- 4 min read
Elly De La Cruz is an amazing baseball player, but something doesn’t feel right. Elly burst onto the scene as a rookie in the MLB by demonstrating some ridiculous traits:
He was absurdly fast –
He had a better arm than most pitchers –
He had world-class power –
He was the kind of player you would design in a video game –
But here’s the problem: all those highlights? They happened in 2023, Elly’s rookie year. It’s not that Elly hasn’t been great since or hasn’t had great moments – it’s more that…well, they don’t seem to be happening with much frequency.
Elly is a better all-around hitter than he was as a rookie, but is he a better all-around player?
Check out these stats (courtesy of BaseballSavant.com) (2026 stats are through 6 games):
Year | Bat Speed (mph / pct) | Sprint Speed (mph / pct) | Barrel% (pct) | Hard-Hit% (pct) | Launch Angle% (pct) | K% (pct) | Whiff% (pct) | Squared-Up% (pct) |
2023 | 76.7 (96th) | 30.5 (100th) | 8.5 (51st) | 45.9 (75th) | 30.5 (14th) | 33.7 (3rd) | 29.7 (24th) | 18.0 (8th) |
2024 | 75.2 (90th) | 30.0 (100th) | 12.7 (86th) | 45.7 (76th) | 35.7 (70th) | 31.3 (6th) | 33.4 (8th) | 22.1 (20th) |
2025 | 74.5 (84th) | 29.1 (91st) | 10.2 (60th) | 44.2 (54th) | 32.5 (22nd) | 25.9 (20th) | 31.7 (9th) | 23.8 (33rd) |
2026 | 73.4 (72nd) | 27.7 (83rd) | 14.3 (79th) | 42.9 (60th) | 21.4 (18th) | 37.0 (7th) | 27.5 (41st) | 17.4 (26th) |
That raw ability – Elly’s super-power and super-speed? It’s been sapped.
But why? Or by who?
He’s still well above-average in both categories, but the super-human nature of his game hasn’t been as prevalent (it is worth noting that sprint speed can be dependent on opportunities).
The word heading into the 2026 season was that Elly was making adjustments. The hybrid toe-tap, used to help Elly to, “slow the game down and see the ball better,” according to Reds hitting coach Chris Valaika, was gone, and the leg kick from his 2023, 2024, and the last two weeks of 2025 was back. Elly was back to embracing power.
He’s hit three home runs already in 2026 (including a solo shot to left-center today against the Texas Rangers), and that’s encouraging, but there are some troubling numbers lurking under the surface that shouldn’t be ignored.
Elly found the sweet spot in 2024, combining elite bat speed and elite sprint speed with an improved chase rate and walk rate. The result was career-bests in Barrel % (12.7, 86th percentile), Hard-Hit % (45.7, 76th percentile) and Launch-Angle % (35.7, 70th percentile).
His traditional and advanced numbers back that up. Elly set career-highs in WAR (5.2), OBP (.339), SLG (.471), OPS+ (119), home runs (25), and stolen bases (67, an MLB-best).
Those numbers took a noticeable dip in 2025 – 3.6 WAR, .336 OBP, .440 SLG, 109 OPS+, 22 home runs, 37 stolen bases – but that could be attributed to a mid-season quad injury which definitely affected his power and explosiveness. Fair enough.
Some of those numbers are on the way back up in 2026 (Barrel %, Hard-Hit %) – but others (Launch-Angle %) aren’t.
At face value, I should be happy to see Elly’s barrel-rate and hard-hit rate going back up, and I am – but I’m concerned for two reasons: one, his swing speed keeps going down, and two, his strikeout rate isn’t getting better.
Common sense suggests that a slower, more controlled swing can allow a hitter like Elly to make more consistent contact – and there’s probably some truth to that. Elly came into the league in 2023 swinging out of his shoes, and bringing that average down juuuuust a tick was well worth it. Elly’s traditional stats (.235/.300/.410 in 2023 vs. .259/.339/.471 in 2024), and his advanced ones, took a massive jump:
That’s great. So, logic would tell you that, if Elly keeps incrementally lowering his bat speed, he should keep getting better and better. Obviously, that’s not how his career has transpired so far.
Then there’s the other issue: his strikeout rate. It’s remained fairly constant since year one except for a brief blip up in 2025. His squared-up rate has been pretty constant and so are his swing-and-miss tendencies.
Maybe he’s figured something out this year, but it’s definitely not helping his strikeout rate either way. It’s still early in the season, but that argument works both ways.
What’s clear is Elly isn’t swinging as hard, and he isn’t running as fast. Is this a mechanical choice, or a coaching emphasis?
Whichever is the case, it’s not exactly helping Elly’s cause. He’s become a better player, but it’s come at the cost of some of his most exciting traits.
Elly has to get back to swinging hard. Maybe not to the level he was at as a rookie, but at least back to 2024.
The improvements we’re seeing at the plate are real – but they’re the result of improved plate discipline chase rates, not a slower swing. It’s not that Elly’s a bad player (far from it); it’s that he’s leaving meat on the bone.
Fortunately, there’s an easy fix: someone just tell Elly to swing a little harder. Not out-of-his-shoes harder, but harder. If he does, his 2026 highlight reel might start looking more like his rookie year.