{"id":599081,"date":"2026-03-01T01:43:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T01:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/599081\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T01:43:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T01:43:01","slug":"elly-de-la-cruz-thought-reds-were-going-to-land-kyle-schwarber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/599081\/","title":{"rendered":"Elly De La Cruz thought Reds were going to land Kyle Schwarber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz believed that his team was going to get a huge boost in the lineup this offseason.<\/p>\n

Before Kyle Schwarber signed a five-year, $150 million deal<\/a> to stay with the Phillies in December, De La Cruz thought that the three-time All-Star was joining the Reds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we were going to get him,\u201d\u00a0De La Cruz told The Enquirer on Friday<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cThat was going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CincinnatiElly De La Cruz reacts at third base in the eighth inning against the Mets\u2019 win over the Reds on July 20, 2025 at Citi Field. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

De La Cruz also said he saw Schwarber on his free agent visit for Cincinnati while working out at the Reds\u2019 facility, and that they had a brief conversation.<\/p>\n

It was rumored early in the offseason that Schwarber, an Ohio native<\/a>, could have signed with the Reds, and that they offered him a five-year deal worth $125 million, according to multiple reports.<\/p>\n

Though Schwarber ultimately remained in Philadelphia, he admitted that he was \u201cimpressed\u201d by the Reds after meeting with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was impressed,\u201d\u00a0Schwarber told MLB.com in December<\/a>. \u201cMe and [my wife] Paige went down to Cincinnati, and we were able to sit down and have that conversation with them and hear them out. I would say that they were not pulling chains, and that they were wanting to try to get me to Cincinnati. <\/p>\n

\"PhiladelphiaKyle Schwarber watches his three-run home run in the seventh inning of the Phillies\u2019 blowout win over the Mets at Citizens Bank Park on Sept. 9, 2025. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are things that you have to cover your bases and every aspect of it. We had those conversations, and I appreciate every conversation I had with every team.\u201d<\/p>\n

De La Cruz was not alone in thinking that Schwarber could have wound up in Cincinnati, as Phillies teammate Bryce Harper told reporters earlier in February that he also thought the designated hitter was signing with the Reds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Kyle was going to go to Cincinnati to tell you the truth,\u201d\u00a0Harper said<\/a>. \u201cI thought it was a done deal going to Cincinnati just because being at home and things like that. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously I didn\u2019t know. We kind of messed with him the whole time about him going back home and playing in front of his fan base.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwarber was regarded as one of the top available bats this free agency after having a career year in 2025, posting a slash line of .240\/.365\/.563 with an NL-leading 56 homers while leading all of MLB in RBIs (132).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz believed that his team was going to get a huge boost in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,535,50,4259,81,4,2046,25,536,185],"class_list":["post-599081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-reds","tag-baseball","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cincinnatireds","tag-kyle-schwarber","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agency","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-reds","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116151387477279340","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}