Been an odd stretch for the red legs. Yasiel Puig. Trevor Bauer. Nick Castellanos. A couple sell-offs. Joey Votto the constant: a Jon Snow meme made incarnate on the baseball field. Brandon Drury and Raisel Iglesias and Jonathan India and Sonny Gray and Fidel Castro and Eric Davis and Pete Rose and Luis Castillo and why the fiery red hell is Hunter Strickland pitching with a lead in the ninth? 

It’s complicated, I guess. They’ve taken some big swings. And mostly missed. Fun that they tried for a while. Not sure what to make of their current direction. Solid pieces in place with Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Alexis Diaz and more. Some impact talents on the way. A few interesting in-betweeners at the big league level. You have to squint a little, but you can see a path back to relevance for the Reds, which is really all you can ask for on the downside of an unsuccessful cycle. 

1. SS Elly De La Cruz | 21 | AA | 2023

In his 2023 Fantasy Outlook for Jordan Walker, Grey refers to meta-human type athletes as Lab Babies. Next year, if he’s still eligible, that post is reserved for E to the DLC: Lab Baby. Prospect Thanos. Inevitable. Only thing between him and that kind of shine is a 2023 debut. The strikeouts and the Reds’ general level of competitiveness could conspire to delay his arrival, but if he does make the leap, we’ll want him on our redraft squads. The power and speed are elite, and I’m way less worried about the strikeouts (158 in 120 games) than what I’ve seen in some other prospect portals because I think the quality of contact is so extreme they barely matter until proven otherwise. De La Cruz is a switch-hitter at 6’5” 200 lbs who explodes his hips through the zone from both sides of the plate. Like Aaron Jude and Oneil Cruz before him, he doesn’t have to square up a pitch to send it seven rows deep. It’s unique. It’s uncanny. It helped him slash .304/.359/.586 with 28 home runs and 47 stolen bases in 120 games across two levels.