Elly Roll
Elly De La Cruz (CIN): 3-3, HR, R, 2 RBI, BB.
Elly’s first season-and-a-half was full of raw promise—electric performances mixed with lengthy slumps, fireworks mixed with frustration. Early this season, perhaps with help from Terry Francona at the helm, he looked like a complete and polished superstar, cutting down the K-rate and upping the power. The steals weren’t coming in the bunches they used to, but it was a fair trade for a .280 average and possibly two hundred runs produced.
But at some point in June, the power disappeared, and it’s been a struggle since. Just look at these first- and second-half splits:
In August, it came out that Elly was playing through a quad issue that was sapping his prodigious skills, but he has still been scuffling in September to a .191 average. Last week, Francona started dropping him in the order (against both righties and lefties, no less). Though he has eight Ks in his 20 at-bats, he’s also drawn seven walks and is starting to run again. And last night, he showed that his power has come back, launching a 415-foot bomb to right field that made it halfway up the bleachers.
Whether Elly stays in the first-round conversation next year might remain in question, but if he’s healthy and still on the board around the first turn, there’s still no player with a bigger upside. He probably won’t steal seventy bases again, or maybe even sixty, but he should become an even more rounded player. And he’s shown that even when hampered by an injury for multiple months, he still has a solid floor.
Let’s see how the other hitters did Tuesday:
Oneil Cruz (PIT): 1-3, HR, R, 2 RBI.
Another Cruz with an up-and-down season, Oneil turned in an April with seven homers and seven steals before becoming droppable midseason (he batted .133 in August, partly due to battling back from a concussion). Moved into a platoon due to his .102/.224/.176 slash line against lefties, Cruz is struggling to find any kind of rhythm at the plate. But last night he corked an oppo-shot for his first homer of the month and twentieth on the season. If you held onto him and somehow are still in the fantasy finals, you have greater faith than mine. Drafted in the third or fourth round this season, he might not make the top 150 next year if he doesn’t regain an everyday role.
Riley Greene (DET): 2-3, HR, R, RBI.
Let’s face it, a lot of last night’s big performances came from players who have been struggling. There’s no better example of that than Greene, who (along with the rest of the Tigers) wishes the season ended in July. Greene’s got amazing talent like the Cruzes, but his swing-and-miss game has caught up to him, with a .188 average and just a .680 OPS since the All-Star Break. And yet, he’s still second in the American League in RBIs (109). He will probably crack 200 K’s before the year is out as well, but he’s managed to keep his average around .260 for the full season and crank 34 home runs. It will be interesting to see where Greene goes next season, even if his breakout campaign had a hard landing.
Colton Cowser (BAL): 2-4, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI.
Cowser’s another young player where the whiff game has been hurting him, mired in a season where he’s hit just .203 after some bad-luck injuries, including a broken thumb just after Opening Day. A concussion also sidelined him for a week in August, and it’s been pretty miserable since, batting .135 in September after sixty plate appearances. But he collected his first multi-hit game since September 2nd last night, including a homer, and pulled his average back up over the Mendoza Line. Cowser’s another player who could be sleeper material next year, but he’d need to avoid a platoon after batting .171 against LHP with 33 K’s in 82 AB’s.
Francisco Lindor (NYM): 2-4, HR, R, 3 RBI.
Lindor in 2023: 31 homers, 31 steals. Lindor in 2024: 33 homers, 29 steals. Lindor in 2025: 29 homers, 31 steals. There’s something to be said for a player who always gets his numbers (his OBP the last three years is .336, .344, .344). Lindor’s now a homer shy from rejoining the 30/30 club after his leadoff blast last night, and for you points league players, he leads the league in plate appearances. Just another day at the office for the perennial first-rounder.
Michael Harris II (ATL): 2-3, 2 HR, 2 R, 2 RBI.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Harris looked like MLB’s worst hitter in the first half of the season, scratching out just a .551 OPS with only six homers and a .210 average. He then caught fire throughout July and August, batting over .300 in both months and mashing eleven total homers, but has since come back to earth. Last night, though, he also had his first homer of September, a 444-footer at 107.8 mph. He’d then hit his second two innings later, this time at 108.8 mph. Harris won’t go in the top-50 next season after underperforming his draft stock two years running, but he’s a sneaky post-hype sleeper depending on where he goes, and someday might regain that .300-average potential.
James Wood (WSN): 2-3, 2B, HR, R, RBI, BB.
It’s been a breakout second season for Wood, but like these other young sluggers in their second and third seasons, pitchers have found a way to strike him out. Wood leads the league in strikeouts with 215 and could break Mark Reynolds’ 16-year-old record of 223. A 32.2% K-rate just isn’t going to come without some major empty spells, but Wood still has 28 homers and somehow has kept his average above .250.
Kyle Schwarber (PHI): 1-4, HR, R, RBI.
Schwarber netted his 130th RBI on the season with his 54th homer, a 112-mph moonshot off Edward Cabrera. Schwarber has been remarkably consistent all year long (no complete month with less than six homers), but has struggled down the stretch a bit with a .764 OPS in September. Hitting so many homers can be tiring. Schwarber’s also reached double-digit steals for just the second time in his career, where his 15% walk rate has given him a lot of SB chances.
Luis Arraez (SDP): 2-3, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI, BB.
Arraez doinked a long fly ball off the bottom of the right field foul pole for his eighth homer of the season, which unsurprisingly would’ve only been gone in the friendly confines of San Diego. It’s good to be home, right? Arraez has had his typical season of extremes—a 1.0% barrel rate with 62.6-mph bat speed (lowest in the Majors), but a K-rate of 3.2% and a whiff rate of 5.3%. All the young power hitters striking out 30% of the time might want to take a few notes here, as Arraez and his lifetime .316 average can still find a way to get things done. He doesn’t hit it hard, but he hits it where they ain’t.
Teoscar Hernández (LAD): 2-4, 3B, HR, R, 3 RBI.
In what’s been a bit of a down season, Hernández has been turning things around at just the right time, with eight XBHs in September, including an unlikely three-bagger and homer last night. He might not get to 30/100 as was expected given where he was drafted, but don’t expect his stock to fall much next season, given where he’s playing and the lineup around him (and if the Dodgers don’t win it all, expect some reinforcements in the offseason). Teoscar profiles a little differently this year than last, pulling grounders more than before and fewer fly balls—once around 20%, his Pull Air Rate is now just 12.7%, partly why his barrel rate is down over 3% from a season ago.
