Elly-ectricity in the air as De La Cruz, Cincinnati Reds open season of big expectations

Three decades after he played his final big-league game, Dave Winfield still projects a powerful presence when he enters a room, especially a baseball clubhouse.

So when the 6-foot-6 Hall of Famer showed up in Cincinnati Reds camp this spring representing the players union, it was impossible to miss the connection when he quickly approached the only other figure in the room who compared for a handshake and conversation.

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It was a handshake that all but produced sparks with the cross-generation current.

Elly De La Cruz did not know who Winfield was. But Winfield knew who De La Cruz was.

All that speed. That arm. That raw power. That electricity.

Winfield knew it. Winfield lived it. Fifty years ago he could see it in the mirror.

It’s the kind of talent that nobody can take their eyes off when it’s on the move on a baseball field.

“He’s definitely one you want to come and watch,” Winfield said. “He can impact the game in so many different ways. That’s why I had to say hello and introduce myself and who we are as a players association.”

Maybe one day De La Cruz will set the kind of bar for the union that Winfield did when he left the San Diego Padres to sign the richest contract in professional sports history in 1980 with the New York Yankees ($23.3 million, 10 years). Maybe he’ll even be playing in the outfield by then, as Winfield did.

For now the Reds’ second-year shortstop is the closest thing to Winfield of his generation.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. Winfield the closest thing in baseball history to what De La Cruz’s enormous, raw skillset suggests he might become?

“No,” Winfield said. “Is there another player like that? No. And a big, tall guy, too? No.

“He’s a unicorn.”

Unicorn? Winfield was the only athlete drafted by four major-league sports leagues – the two-sport start at the University of Minnesota (baseball and basketball) also drafted by the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA, the Utah Stars of the ABA and the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL (they wanted to make him a tight end even though he didn’t play college football).

“Two basketball leagues?” De La Cruz said. “That’s crazy.”

When it was suggested he compares to Winfield, De La Cruz shook his head.

“He wasn’t like me,” De La Cruz said. “He was more.”

They can argue about it the next time they meet.

Until then, De La Cruz turns the electricity back on Thursday when the Reds open the season against the Washington Nationals at Great American Ball Park – and starts showing how much all that work over the winter and spring has done to even out the vaulted peaks and late-season valleys he experienced as a rookie last year.

That electricity is a current that runs through everything the Reds want to do this season in their sequel to last year’s surprising, rookie-driven near-miss of October – from their roster full of team speed to the hard-throwing young pitchers on the staff, led by triple-digit Hunter Greene, who has flashed no-hit stuff.

“There’s a lot of electricity on this team,” De La Cruz said.

The fastest team in the league last year led the majors in stolen bases and talked openly this spring about getting better on the bases – “We think we can be a lot better,” manager David Bell said.

That electric style of team play took a hit with extended-time injuries to center fielder TJ Friedl (wrist) and Matt McLain (shoulder), and the half-season suspension of rookie Noelvi Marte for steroids.

But the man with the fastest sprint time clocked in the majors last year – not to mention the hardest (99 mph) infield throws and the tape-measure power – is still standing 6-foot-6 tall in the middle of things for the Reds as they open the season.

And that speed, power and electricity look more important than ever with some of the key absences.

“I’ve got to be ready to go anyway,” said De La Cruz, who finished the spring strong. “But with those guys out, it’s more. I’ve got to be even more ready to do my job. All the little things.

“But everybody on this team has got something to do,” he added. “They’re going to be there. With (attention to) detail. Doing the small things. And we’re going to be good this year.”

The experience across the board is going to make the difference, he said.

“It’s going to be kind of the same – electric like last year,” he said. “But we’re going to be there (in the end). We’re going to compete every day.”

Division opponents see them coming this time.

Chicago Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks said he expects “a dogfight” in the division with the Reds in the middle of it.

“I think the Reds are super dangerous,” Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “You could see it last year. They’re really good.”

That’s dangerous as in Danger: High Voltage.

That’s the thing about exciting, young talent in baseball – and about electricity. It’s volatile.

Greene has flirted with no-hitters more than once in less than two years in the big leagues. But he also has a 4.62 ERA in 46 career starts as he looks for his breakout season a year after signing a six-year contract. Nick Lodolo, another electric-stuff starter, hasn’t been able to stay on the field, but the hope is the stress fracture in his leg that cost him most of last season is finally behind him.

And De La Cruz has the kind of upside that makes scouts drool and fans fall in love at first sight.

The kind of ceiling and promise that made former teammate Joey Votto compare him to “a young Mickey Mantle” after De La Cruz hit for the cycle in his 15th big-league game – and two weeks before he stole third and home on the same pitch.

“I’ve got nobody to compare him to,” Votto said then. “There’s no precedent I’ve seen in my experience.”

He also has the swing-and-miss that sent him into a deep slump the rest of the season after a stunning first five weeks in the majors (33.7-percent strikeout rate as a rookie – 40.1 after the All-Star break – compared to 22.7 league average).

“It’s the classic young-player scenario, where the league is just constantly adjusting, and you have to keep adjusting,” said Cubs manager Craig Counsell, who saw him as much as any opponent in baseball last year (nine games) as the manager of the Brewers.

“He’ll certainly learn that. But he got his first taste of that,” Counsell said. “And that’s what makes playing in the big leagues hard, even for the most talented players.”

That’s why the Reds spent so much attention on an off-season conditioning plan (they say he got tired; he says he didn’t) and hitting plan. Why De La Cruz bought in by all accounts. Why veteran Jeimer Candelario was brought in – as much as a mentor as a switch-hitting contributor to the lineup.

“Man, Elly’s going to have a good year. He’s a good kid. He likes to listen,” Candelario said. “He likes to talk. And he’s really humble. He’s a guy that if you tell him something, he’s going to take it the right way.”

Things like “don’t swing so hard all the time” and “you don’t have to pull the ball to hit home runs.”

That was part of Candelario’s early message to De La Cruz, and he followed the advice. His first few hits of the spring were to the opposite field. And the final week of camp, the switch-hitting De La Cruz hit a triple off the fence right-handed – the side he struggled most with last year –  just to the right of center and then two days later got under a pitch from the left side that seemed an easy out for the left fielder, until it carried just over the fence.

Candelario knew that kind of power was there before he ever met De La Cruz. Everyone who followed baseball in the Dominican Republic knew it before anyone in the United States did.

Two winters ago, De La Cruz, still a minor-leaguer, hit a home run to dead center field at the Santo Domingo stadium, reaching a part of the ballpark no hitter had reached in at least four years.

“When it passed the fans, it was like, ‘whoosh!’ “ Candelario said. “It was crazy.”

Electrifying even.

“After that  his name in the Dominican Republic was getting popular,” Candelario said.

It’s what happens next for De La Cruz that is most important.

For him. For his career. For everything the Reds want to do this season.

“What I’ve seen Elly do is work his ass off all spring to get better and do everything right within his control,” Bell said.

He still struck out a lot this spring. He had a few rough games in the field. But he also walked at a high rate. And for what any of these performance numbers might mean in such a small sample-size period before the bright lights come on, he also hit and slugged this spring.

“Errors are going to happen at any time of the year,” Bell said. “As long as the work continues and the attitude towards improving every day is there, then I’m taking our chances with Elly on the field in all areas of the game.”

That’s the bet the Reds made when they called him up last June to play every day in a pennant race. When Bell batted him cleanup for six weeks out of the gate, then leadoff for almost another month despite the struggles.

It’s the bet they continue to make in the person as much as the player – a smart, confident, hard-working 22-year-old who also decided during this pivotal spring of his career to focus on his second language of English when doing interviews with English-speaking media.

That might be the most impressive thing he’s done all spring.

What comes next is hard to predict. That’s the thing about electricity. And about high-voltage, young baseball talent.

“He’s extraordinarily fast. He’s got all the tools,” said Winfield, who took three or four years in his career to become the superstar that eventually wound up in Cooperstown.

“The key in this game is just to stay healthy,” Winfield said. “And no one can expect the performances that he started out with on a daily basis.”

De La Cruz said he knows he set an unrealistic bar for himself those first five weeks last year.

“I’ve just got to be consistent,” he said. “It’s a lot of expectations, but it’s not only expectations. I’ve got to make it happen every day.

“We make mistakes,” he said. “There’s always going to be mistakes. But mental mistakes, that can’t happen.”

Whatever comes next, he said he’s ready.

With all eyes of a city on him. And the electricity of expectations in the air.

“I believe I’m going to have a great season because I’ve prepared well to play well this season,” he said, reiterating that his issues late last season had nothing to do with fatigue. “It was a little bit tough. It was hard. But we handled that, and this year we’re going to do better.

“The second season. I can’t wait till Opening Day.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Elly De La Cruz provides electricity as Cincinnati Reds open season of big expectations