Elly De La Cruz

On the record · career milestone this season

500 career hits — Sun, Jul 12 · day game vs. Chicago Cubs The scorecard → · The write-up →

The card rack

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FlagshipElly De La Cruz #44 · 2024 Topps Chrome · 791 recent sales 7N ▼0.9%

His flagship is his rookie — one card, one market.

$3.18Raw$17.78PSA 9$62.00PSA 10$81.00BGS 10PSA 10 · 59 nights

Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-10-11 · paid links

$2.00Ungraded$2.99Ungraded$2.99Ungraded

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Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases. · Flagship = his most-traded card (the market’s reference); the rookie = the top card of his first card year. As of October 11, 2026 · trend is FVR's own nightly archive · prices via SportsCardsPro · what these terms mean

Scout’s note

Cruz hits the ball harder than nearly anyone we track — an EV95 of 111.79, 98th percentile of 395 qualified MLB bats (median 105.8) — and his results sit within 0.0109 of what the physics support. Nothing owed, nothing borrowed; his price is right at No. 119 on the breakout composite, where the board takes 20. A 6-foot-6 shortstop from Sabana Grande de Boya, 24, hitting .286 with 28 homers for Cincinnati. The last two weeks — .370, six homers, a 1.343 OPS in 13 MLB games — aren't a streak. They're the contact arriving.

Note written Sep 20 · FVR scout (GLM-5.2)

Current signals

The read: Cruz is tracked, not flagged: an EV95 of 111.7 (98th percentile of the 406 qualified MLB bats we track; median 105.8) with results within 0.009 of what the physics support — nothing owed, nothing borrowed. The boards hunt mispricing, and his price is right. He sits No. 118 of 406 on the breakout composite; the board takes 20.

SQUARE — the line and the bat agree. Where he sits in the league →

EV95 (mph)

111.7

Luck gap (park-adj)

0.0092

Overlay score

0.2624

WAR (season · MLB calc)

6.4

Balls in play

370

Age

24

A market fact, not an engine read: what a club decided about him, on the season before this one. Figures from Cot’s, as of June 29, 2025.

2026 salary

$7.20M

Tax hit

$7.20M

Service time

3 yr 118 d

Options left

2 / 3

Cash and the tax hit are two different rulebooks and are never subtracted from one another — see the payroll board for his club, Cincinnati Reds.

A second set of books

The same contract, read by MLB Spreadsheets (Ethan Hullihen), as of September 17, 2026. We keep two sources on this because one source cannot check itself.

Tax AAV

$0.80M

Guaranteed

$0.80M

Term

1 yr

His class

Pre-Arb

The tax AAV above is his number under the CBA’s own rulebook, not the average we work out from Cot’s total. On a contract with deferred money the two come apart on purpose — and neither is subtracted from the other.

The Wire

△ On the field: Elly De La Cruz lights up at his own bat-speed numbers on the Blast iPad.

X chatter, trailing 2 days · as of 2026-10-10 · newest post 2026-10-09 · summarized by Grok (xAI) · how this works →

Collect Elly De La Cruz

If the signal is right, the cardboard usually finds out later. Current listings:

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Not financial advice. We take positions only after publication — never before. Misses stay on the record.

The Bureau on Elly De La Cruz

The scouting press, in their own words