Reds front office says more about Elly De La Cruz’s torn quad – Redleg Nation

The Cincinnati Reds Hot Stove League show was live on the air Wednesday night. The guest on the first half of the show was Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall. One of the last things he was asked on the show was about Elly De La Cruz and being moved from shortstop. After saying no, he would not be moved from shortstop, he began to defend his shortstop skills by noting that De La Cruz played well until he tore his quad in late July and after that his error total more than doubled as he committed 14 of his 26 errors from then on.

Here’s a quote from Krall: “At the end of July, he was dealing with a partially torn quad. And he was rehabbing, he was on the sidelines today. He’s been rehabbing all season. To his credit, he played every day. He tried to grind through it. He tried to play through it.”

You can hear it this specific question and statement after 20 minutes here. At some point the message appeared to reach the media who have the ability to contact Krall, or he was told that his statement on the radio show did not come across well and he clarified his statements. Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer was the first to publish this clarification, which turned out to be almost no clarification at all.

“I said partial tear on the radio, which means strain,” Krall said. “It was more whiny than serious.”

The only clarification is that he said it was more whiny than serious.

The facts didn’t change much. He said it was a partial tear on Wednesday night’s radio show. Then he said the same thing Thursday morning, but added that it was more than serious.

The facts here are still quite simple even after the new explanations:

1. The Reds still had their franchise superstar playing with a torn quad.
2. They didn’t just let him play with a torn quad, they played him every time. Single. Day.
3. They didn’t just let him play every day with a torn quad. He served as the designated hitter once after the All-Star break, despite having a torn quad that they knew about, and instead played him at shortstop 99% of the time. He was the team’s designated hitter three times in the first half.
4. His performance in the second half was downright poor. In almost all aspects of the game. He didn’t hit for any power. He had difficulty hitting in any form for long periods of time. And the defense also took a step back.

As we noticed yesterday, a lot is happening here. De La Cruz wanted to play through it. He wanted to play every day. Good for him. Serious. You want guys who want to play if they believe they can play.

But the seasoned veterans of the club’s decision-making structure had to intervene at some point. It starts at the top with Nick Krall. Everyone noticed that De La Cruz played poorly in the second half. Krall didn’t seem to step in and say, “Let’s give him some rest.” The same goes for general manager Brad Meador. The same goes for manager Terry Francona. And the same goes for the medical staff, who aren’t exactly involved in the “baseball decisions,” but even they had to be aware of what was going on.

All these people somehow seemed to fail to protect Elly De La Cruz, who is still recovering from a “nagging” injury that the team has apparently known about since July (so we are now talking about a “nagging” injury of four months). They risked injuring him further. And for what? So he could perform poorly for the entire second half of the season? It’s one thing to say, “Okay, he can play with this if he’s very careful about how he approaches the game,” but at what point do you say, “This doesn’t really help the team and we’re taking the risk of further injuries”? Apparently there was no point to anyone involved here.