The Cincinnati Reds have one of the most electric players in baseball. And they’re probably going to be sellers at the trade deadline for the second straight year. That combination is going to produce noise. But there’s one move the front office absolutely cannot make before August 3: trading Elly De La Cruz.
Let’s be real about the situation first. The Reds are eight games back of the final NL Wild Card spot heading into the All-Star Break. They’ve got six teams to climb over. Last year’s playoff run was a surprise. This year’s would be a miracle. So yes, they should be dealing. Tyler Stephenson, Jose Trevino, Eugenio Suarez, Brady Singer, Emilio Pagan. Those guys should be gone. Get what you can for them. Restock the farm. But De La Cruz stays.
The reason isn’t just that he’s a 23-year-old shortstop with generational tools. It’s the timing. A lockout is coming in December, and nobody knows exactly what the labor landscape will look like after that. If a salary cap gets introduced or the luxury tax gets seriously tightened, big-market teams might not be able to throw unlimited money at free agents the way they do now. That could actually work in Cincinnati’s favor for once.
De La Cruz is represented by Scott Boras, so you know the plan is to hit free agency in 2030 and get paid. The Reds have a long history of letting stars walk rather than paying them — Johnny Cueto, Todd Frazier, Aroldis Chapman, Eugenio Suarez all left and became stars somewhere else. But this situation is different. De La Cruz is under team control through 2029. That’s a lot of runway.
Look at what happened with Juan Soto in 2022. The Nationals traded him midseason and got back a nice haul. But Soto was two years from free agency at that point. De La Cruz is five years away. The Reds have time to build around him, see how the lockout shakes out, and possibly even extend him if ownership is willing to increase payroll coming out of a new CBA.
Hunter Greene is in a similar spot with his contract, but he’s been hurt most of this season. His trade value is shot right now. The Reds wouldn’t get fair value for him anyway. So you hold, you regroup, you try to compete in 2027 with a healthy Greene and a locked-in De La Cruz. Or you trade De La Cruz later, when the market is clearer and you can maximize the return.
Everyone knows which teams would be in on him now. The Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, the usual suspects. But if a lockout changes the financial rules of the game, maybe a team like the Reds actually has a path to keeping their superstar. That’s a gamble worth taking.
For now, the Reds should move the expiring contracts and the rental pieces. Build for next year. But De La Cruz stays in Cincinnati through August 3. That’s the one line they can’t cross.
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