Vaughn Dalzell explains why Elly De La Cruz is worth a wager for National League MVP.
National League MVP: Elly De La Cruz (+1500)
While I have tickets on Elly De La Cruz to lead the league in stolen bases (+700) and triples (+750), I am not done yet as the 22-year-old continues to tear up the league.
De La Cruz leads the MLB in stolen bases (18), steal attempts (21), and tied third for homers (8) and runs scored (26) through 29 games.
The 22-year-old ranks 10th in SLG (.590) and OPS (.980), plus 14th in walks (17), 19th in RBIs (17), and 20th in OBP (.390). The only knock on De La Cruz thus far are his strikeouts (36), which is tied for the 11th-most.
He is dominating at home this year with a .373 batting average, 13 RBIs, and 13 stolen bases compared to a .184 batting average, 6 RBIs, and 5 stolen bases on the road.
De La Cruz will improve his road numbers as the season goes on and considering San Diego, Texas, Seattle, Philadelphia, and the Chicago White Sox (eh) were the road trips this year, I will give him a pass on that slow start away from home.
I think De La Cruz is the type of player to fuel a Wild Card or NL Central Title berth and dominate in the process with his ability to create runs. The Reds are 16-13 through 29 games and will only get better, in my opinion.
The main competition to De La Cruz for NL MVP will be Mookie Betts (+145), Ronald Acuna (+1000), and Shohei Ohtani (+1000). De La Cruz could put up similar stats to Acuna’s record-breaking season last year and there’s always the question of whether Ohtani and Betts will steal votes from each other .
While all three players (Betts, Ohtani, Acuna) are on championship-caliber teams, De La Cruz can lift his team up a notch and get the Reds into the playoffs for the first time since 2020, and before that was 2013.
I played De La Cruz to win NL MVP at +1500 odds on FanDuel and sprinkled him to lead the MLB in home runs at +6500 as I think those odds should be much shorter -- between +3000 to +3500 for example.
Pick: Elly De La Cruz to win NL MVP (1u), Elly De La Cruz to lead MLB in HRs (0.25u)
MLB Futures in my pocket
2u: Hunter Greene Over 183.5 Strikeouts (-106)
2u: Jesus Luzardo Over 189.5 Strikeouts (-110)
1u: Ronald Acuna Jr. to win NL MVP (+500)
1u: Julio Rodriguez to win AL MVP (+1000)
1u: Elly De La Cruz to win NL MVP (+1500)
1u: Elly De La Cruz to lead MLB in triples (+750)
1u: Elly De La Cruz to lead MLB in stolen bases (+700)
1u: Jesus Luzardo to lead MLB in strikeouts (+3000)
1u: Hunter Greene to lead MLB in Strikeouts (+1700)
1u: Rockies to have the worst record in MLB (+220)
0.5u: Paul Skenes to win NL ROY (+2300)
0.25u: Elly De La Cruz to lead MLB in HRs (+6500)
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