GOODYEAR, Ariz. — This isn’t just a leg kick that Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz is bringing back full-time in 2026. This isn’t just an in-the-weeds part of his mechanics.
The leg kick tells you something.
De La Cruz has made a decision to go back to being the style of hitter that he was in 2023, 2024 and for the final two weeks of the season in 2025.
He’s embracing his power more than he did for most of last season. He’s going back to being more aggressive.
De La Cruz with a leg kick is the most dangerous version of what he can be at the plate.
“He has a chance to hit 30 homers and steal 50 bags,” Nick Krall said on Thursday. “If he can mash in the zone and not chase… he’ll be an elite player.”
The progression of De La Cruz’s hitting mechanics tell the story of his career. He immediately made a huge splash in the big leagues in 2023, and the elite raw power that elicited John Sadak’s call, “That ball had a family,” was generated by a mighty leg kick. During De La Cruz’s rookie season, pitchers adjusted and his strikeout rate climbed.
He used the leg kick in 2024, when he posted a .809 OPS, made the All-Star team and finished eighth in the NL in MVP voting. But in 2024, he also hit .259 and led MLB with 218 strikeouts. De La Cruz wanted to become a more consistent hitter in 2025, so he ditched the leg kick for a toe tap. The end result was much more balanced swing mechanics and fewer moving pieces.
De La Cruz upped his batting average in 2025 and cut down on the strikeouts significantly. But with the toe tap rather than the leg kick, he wasn’t the same slugger.
“Last year, the hybrid toe tap helped him slow things down and see the ball better,” hitting coach Chris Valaika said. “Did it take away some of the aggressiveness? There’s probably an argument to that. At the end of the season, going back to (the leg kick), he feels more comfortable with that. If we can tap into his athleticism with it, we’ll see what it looks like.”
De La Cruz was dealing with a lot of challenges in the second half of the 2025 season as he went through the worst slump of his career. He somehow played every day while battling a significant quad injury, which also zapped him of some of his power. He dealt with the pressure of being “the guy” on a team that was pushing for a playoff spot. He dealt with a death in the family.
It was a lot for a 24-year-old.
“This is a young kid,” Terry Francona said.
Between July 1 and Sept. 14, De La Cruz posted a .645 OPS with one total homer. Then, during a series in St. Louis, Reds assistant hitting coach Alex Peláez was looking to create some buzz in the batting cages as the players hung out. So on the television screen, he pulled up clips of different Reds players hitting homers.
The clips that he showed of Elly De La Cruz were from earlier in his career. De La Cruz got real quiet as he watched these clips. Then, he went into the batting cage and took some swings. He used the leg kick.
The leg kick stuck. And between Sept. 15 and the end of the season, he posted a .939 OPS with three homers. He was hot going into the playoffs.
During the offseason, De La Cruz had a decision to make.
Did he want to hit for more power and live with more strikeouts? Or did he want to use the toe tap and make hitting for average and getting on base a bigger part of the equation by doing a better job of controlling the strike zone?
What type of hitter did he want to be?
The Reds’ coaching staff discussed this with De La Cruz at length during the offseason.
“The conversations we’ve had are about looking to do damage — always,” Valaika said. “Controlling the strike zone. But especially now with (Eugenio Suárez) here, teams are going to have to make a decision about who they’ll have to come after. When (De La Cruz) is on base, that’s even more of a threat.”
Does the leg kick make De La Cruz a more dangerous hitter?
“That’s the goal,” Valaika said. “It’s about ramping up the intent and looking to do damage, and continuing to fall back on the strike zone awareness that he has had.”
The coaching staff and De La Cruz still want there to be a balance. Last year, while De La Cruz didn’t hit for as much power, he was able to develop a much better feel for the strike zone. As a result, Valaika said, he really started “earning” the strike zone. Pitchers offered him more to hit because they knew that De La Cruz would be able to take his walks. The toe tap also helped De La Cruz develop better balance and timing.
The ideal endgame here is that De La Cruz combines the aggressive upside of the leg kick with the skills that he developed during his year with the toe tap.
“We all want guys to be as dangerous as possible,” Francona said. Things go hand in hand. If you’re swinging at good pitches, you’re going to be more dangerous. How do you swing at good pitches? You have to get a good look at the ball.”
This spring, while he uses the leg kick, the big thing that De La Cruz is working on is “controlling the middle of his body.” If you’ve watched him, you can picture examples where he’ll get forward of center and start crashing onto his front leg. Or, on the flip side, he’ll get stuck on his back leg, get really defensive and end up pushing a low line drive the other way.
The best version of De La Cruz’s swing includes a leg kick as well as a core that’s under control.
“Keeping his center of gravity and his core in one place (is key),” Francona said. “If he’s able to do that with a leg kick, great. He’s so long levered. When he starts getting in front, it gets longer and makes it harder.”
Zooming out from the mechanics, the Reds see several reasons why De La Cruz will have a greater power output in 2026.
Having Suárez behind him in the order helps in multiple ways. Opponents don’t want De La Cruz’s speed on base with Suárez’s power at the plate, so De La Cruz should see more strikes. Valaika said, “They might have to come at Elly a bit more knowing they don’t want to put him on base and have to deal with the length in our lineup.”
Also, De La Cruz doesn’t have to put the pressure on himself to be the “RBI guy,” Krall said. “Suárez knows that role — he drove in 118 last year.”
De La Cruz put the quad injury behind him during the offseason. Krall said, “He’s in good shape. He got stronger in the offseason.” A healthier De La Cruz hits the ball further than a banged-up De La Cruz.
The automated-ball-strike challenge system is coming to MLB this year. On Thursday, Krall spoke about how much that will help De La Cruz. Krall said, “The ABS has a chance to benefit him because of how many (strikes) get called out of the zone because he’s so long.”
Because of his height, De La Cruz gets an unfair amount of pitches that are actually out of the strike zone that end up being wrongly called strikes. Now, he gets to challenge those pitches. That should take at least a handful of strikeouts away from De La Cruz this season.
The Reds are confident that De La Cruz will be better in 2026 than he was in 2025. He’s still early in his career, and he’s still improving.
“He’s an overall superstar,” Jose Trevino said. “He’s unbelievable. I go to my hometown and you still see No. 99 jerseys (Aaron Judge). But there are a ton of 44 jerseys. For Elly De La Cruz. He’s a special player.”
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