Second-year major-leaguer Elly De La Cruz has emerged as one of the top players in all of baseball during the start of the 2024 MLB season, and the Cincinnati Reds shortstop has a chance to eclipse the impressive 73 stolen bases that Ronald Acuna Jr. racked up last season. In fact, De La Cruz is on pace to finish with more steals than anyone since the days of Ricky Henderson.
Elly De La Cruz Leads MLB In Steals By A Long Shot
Elly De La Cruz currently has 31 stolen bases on the season…
Are you betting on him to break 100? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/uZFExlGdUi
— Action Network (@ActionNetworkHQ) May 28, 2024
De La Cruz has played in all 54 goes for the Reds so far this season, and is putting up numbers that have placed him in the MVP conversation after the first two months of action. His stats across the board are impressive, but no number sticks out quite like the amount of steals that he has racked up thus far.
Through the 54 games, De La Cruz has stolen 31 bases, which leads the major leagues by a long shot. The next highest total is 19, shared by Jose Caballero and Brice Turang, and De La Cruz is nearly doubling up the guys tied for 4th place (Bobby Witt Jr, Jacob Young; 16).
De La Cruz Still 40 Off Of Ricky Henderson’s Pace
With 30 stolen bases this season, Elly De La Cruz has more SB than 15 MLB teams. 😳 pic.twitter.com/ct0tlWYIK4
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) May 21, 2024
If he were to play in every contest for the remainder of the season and continued at his current pace, De La Cruz would finish the year with roughly 92 steals. That would place him in the top-35 of all time, and would be the 10th most in the MLB since 1980. Acuna’s 73 robberies last year were the most since Jose Reyes stole 78 back in 2007.
The overall MLB record for steals in a single season is held by Hugh Nicol, who stole 138 bags way back in 1887. In fact, only four of the ten highest totals in the history of the game happened post-1900. Ricky Henderson holds the modern day record with 130 back in 1982.
De La Cruz and the Reds were a full ten games under .500 as recently as last week, but have found their groove recently and are winners of four games in a row. Their record currently sits at 24-30, and they are in last place in the NL Central, a division whose second place team has an even 27-27 mark.
