Will anyone tell Elly De La Cruz "no?"

Mo wonders why no one told the Reds' shortstop "no" in 2025 and wonders if anyone will in 2026?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, So I don't have a show on Thursday. I'm
taking the day off load Management season two point zero,
and I'm off on Friday because we have Bengals pep
Rally and we're back next week Tony and Moo Football
show on Monday. There's so much going on right now.
By the time I'm back on the air, the Nick

(00:20):
Krawl comments about Ellie Dela Cruz probably going to be
old news, but I want to spend some time on them,
So here we are. Ellie Dela Cruz did not have
a very good twenty twenty five and Nick Krawl was
talking about this, I guess on The Red's Hot Stove
League show and made an allusion to the quad injury

(00:43):
that was referred to a few times during the summer
last year. But I guess Nick said, well, he was
playing with a partial tear. Now he has since and
I read this on Cincinnati dot Com. He has since
clarified this, backtracked a little bit and said I meant strain,
And we do these interviews with medical pros from Morthos

(01:05):
since the every week.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
A partial tear is often considered a strain, so kind
of a semantics thing here. Ellie did not have surgery,
didn't need surgery. He's still rehabbing, which is kind of
alarming because the season ended like seven eight weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
But whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Everybody seems to think Ellie's going to be okay for
the start of spring training. Ellie's gonna be okay for
opening day. Hopefully Ellie has a great year. But I
come back to last summer, when you know, you would say, like,
Ellie's not looking very good at the plate right now,
and he's having a hard time in the field, and
you would hear, well, you know he's hurt, and you'd go, okay, well,

(01:50):
maybe give him a day off, and it was, well,
you can't because he wants to play one hundred and
sixty two games. He wants to play every day, Like
all right, well, but he's really struggling, he's not helping
the team. Well, yeah, because he's hurt. Okay, can you
like occasionally d h em Well, no, because Ellie wants
to play every game in the field, Okay, Well he's

(02:11):
struggling in the field and at the plate. Well, because
he's hurt, Okay, then how about we put him on
the injured list, if for no other reason then he
gets a chance to rest.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
But but Ellie doesn't want to go in the injured list.
He wants to play every single day. Well, okay, but
he's not being very productive. Well it's because he's hurt. Okay, Well, then,
you know, can we just figure out a way to
not play him every game, every inning? Put him at shortstop? Like,
can we come up with something else? No, because Ellie
wants to play every single day.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, he's not.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Being very helpful to the team right now. He's really struggling.
He doesn't look at the plate, never hits for power. Well,
it's because he's hurt.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Okay. Well, can we just occasionally d HM, maybe.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Like one day off a homestand are we sure you
don't put him on the injured list? Well, you can't
because he wants to play every day. And it just
it went on and on and on. It's just never ending,
like circle of this same conversation. And I feel like
there's a lot of folks who didn't really want to
talk about this because you know, we all love Elie

(03:17):
Dela Cruz, or maybe because the Reds were in the
playoff playoff hunt and you know, wanted to focus on
the positives of that. But that entire time, I was wondering,
is somebody gonna be the adult in the room? Like
Nick Krawl, president of Baseball Operations, Did it ever occur
to him that maybe the best thing for Ellie would

(03:40):
be to not have him play shortstop and bat third
every single day? And okay, not Nick Krawl, what about
the manager, Tito? Like you hired Terry Francona because of
his resume and he's a beloved figure, but also like,

(04:01):
this is a guy who has pull, heft, gravitas cashe,
this is a guy who can throw his weight around,
and so a guy like that should have the ability
to raise his hand and go, Guys, are we sure?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Are we sure that playing Ellie every single day at shortstop?
Makes sense? Is that really what's best for him? Is
that really what's best for the team? Did he never
do that? And so we can't go back in time?
But I wonder moving forward because Ellie is not a

(04:40):
finished product, wonderfully talented, capable of doing awesome things, easy
guy to root for. You admire the fact that he
wants to play every day, but you know he can
still be an adventure in shortstop, and that's putting it mildly.
So if that continues, the more it continues, the more people,
people smarter than me, are gonna wonder, why don't you

(05:03):
put him in center field? Why not the outfield?

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Now, maybe Ellie has a great year at shortstop and
we stop doing that. But let's say the adventures at
shortstop continue. Is is anybody gonna say to Ellie, dude,
you've you've got to You've got to go work out
in centerfield.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
We've got to try you out there.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
And the guy in the organization who I believe should
have enough weight and enough poll to do that is
the manager. Is he unwilling to do that? Is he
unwilling to tell Ellie you're not gonna bat third every day?
If the production doesn't dictate he hits there is Tito
gonna have have the ability to tell him, or the

(05:50):
willingness to tell him, Ellie, we're not gonna play you
every single game. It makes sense, you know, when you
play every game. Maybe there's this law of finishing returns
thing in play here, So maybe we get the most
out of you if we get just a little bit
less of you, and you take the occasional day off
or you date occasionally, and you know what if you

(06:12):
if you suffer an injury, we put you on the
injured list, and you rest and you recuperate and you
get better and somebody else plays and you come back
healthier and more capable of helping the team.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Like that's that's what I want to know moving forward.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Elie dela Cruz is one of the foundational pieces of
this franchise. And you know, I understand we all want
the need to be here forever, but it doesn't mean
that you can't tell him no. It doesn't mean that
he gets to just do whatever he wants without anybody
getting in his way.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
And again to me that that person is Tito.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
And look, Terry Francona, by all accounts, did a terrific
job with last year's team, finished second in the National
League Manager of the Year voting. We're all thrilled that
he's here. It's awesome that he's here. But one of
the reasons why you hired him, I thought, was to
be able to look at a guy like Elie Delacruz
and be the adult and tell him no, and tell

(07:15):
him why you're telling him no, and explain, explain that
what you're doing is in his best interest and in
the team's best interest, because what they did with Ellie
Delacruz last year certainly did not feel like was with
his best interests in mind, and it didn't feel like
it what was best for the team either. So I

(07:37):
wonder was everybody last year just totally unwilling to tell
him no?

Speaker 2 (07:43):
And is that going to continue this year? I hope
not