Sunday afternoon in Great American Ball Park brought out the full range of emotions for the Cincinnati Reds. They picked up a win to stave off a would-be sweep by the Atlanta Braves, but watched as superstar Elly De La Cruz pulled up lame rounding 1B on a ball he hit to the wall in RF.
Our hearts sunk when Elly exited immediately. Our hearts woke up when, after the game, Elly said he felt pretty good and had hopefully avoided anything serious by pulling up when he did.
On Monday, we got the real news, though – Elly is going to hit the 10-day IL to rest this hamstring, and the Reds are going to turn to top prospect Edwin Arroyo to replace him on the active roster.
Also noted here is the promotion of LHP Brandon Liebrandt back to the big leagues and the DFA of Yunior Marte, who was only just promoted this weekend during the spate of injuries the Reds faced in their bullpen crisis.
The big news, though, is the Elly/Arroyo swap. The former has obviously established himself as one of the elite talents in the game, but what Arroyo has managed to accomplish to this point is pretty damn impressive, too. While this hammy is the first injury that has shipped Elly to the sidelines in his career, Arroyo has the experience of having to overcome a major shoulder injury, surgery, and lost year that came with it. And though he rebounded in 2025 to show he was still a competent baseball player, his 2026 (so far) has shown that he’s once again one of the better regarded shortstops on the planet for his age.
He was a consensus Top 100 prospect when the Reds acquired him in the trade that sent Luis Castillo to Seattle. He’s also a former 2nd round pick out of Puerto Rico that received a full-slot bonus to buy him out of his commitment to powerhouse Florida State University, too. Outside of the shoulder years, he’s been elite just about every step of the way – defensively, if nothing else – but his bat has woken up at AAA Louisville this year to round out his prospect status. It’s been so good that he vaulted all the way to the #23 spot on Keith Law’s mid-season Top 50 overall prospect list last week, and now he’ll get a shot to show his chops in the Cincinnati infield.
It will be interesting to see how the Reds rotate their infield since Arroyo, like Matt McLain, is a shortstop by trade who’s spent plenty of time at 2B given the presence of Elly within the organization. Maybe Terry Francona will rotate the two between those two spots (with some Sal Stewart and Spencer Steer sprinkled in at 2B), or maybe, just maybe, the Reds will let the switch-hitting shortstop prospect simply go play shortstop in Elly’s absence and keep as few of the other moving parts from having to move, too.
It’s obviously a bummer that Elly will join Hunter Greene, Emilio Pagan, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Brandon Williamons, Rhett Lowder, Pierce Johnson, Graham Ashcraft, you, me, them, and those other guys on the list of injured players on the Reds roster, but having Arroyo to promote – when he’s done so much to prove he’s ready at AAA this year – is about as good an insurance policy as there could be. Now, we just have to hope he hits the ground running.
