CINCINNATI -- After the 2025 season ended, Reds All-Star shortstop Elly De La Cruz got busy rehabilitating and recovering from the left quadriceps strain that nagged him throughout the second half.
But with Spring Training right around the corner, De La Cruz appeared to have the injury well behind him.
"It took like a month, two months. It wasn’t that bad," De La Cruz said on Friday at Redsfest. “I’m working hard, working a lot.”
De La Cruz, who spent all day flying to Cincinnati from the Dominican Republic with teammate and friend Noelvi Marte, received a very warm welcome at introductions for Redsfest on Friday evening.
Having turned 24 on Sunday, De La Cruz was hungry to elevate every part of his game.
"I want to take everything to the next step," said De La Cruz, who spent the first few weeks of the offseason training in Cincinnati.
"I’m not going to settle down with something. I always want more and more. I don’t believe in [being] at the top. There’s always something to achieve. There’s always a way to get better. You never get to the highest level.”
De La Cruz batted .264 with a .776 OPS, 22 home runs, 86 RBIs and 37 steals last season. He hit 18 homers over his first 79 games before adding only four more in the remaining 83 games.
That was in part due to the quad injury, and perhaps the grind of playing all 162 regular-season games plus two playoff games. He missed only one start, and that was due to travel delays while attending his sister's funeral in the Dominican.
“I don’t have an excuse for how my season was because it was my choice. I chose to play every single day," De La Cruz said.
De La Cruz resisted efforts by manager Terry Francona to give him a rest, and even tried to push back when used as a designated hitter in four games. During the Winter Meetings last month, Francona blamed himself for not finding days to give De La Cruz a break.
"I need to find ways to get him off his feet from time to time, and I didn't do a very good job of that, and I own up to that," Francona said.
De La Cruz again seemed prepared to resist Francona's efforts to rest him in 2026.
"I would like to play every day. I want to go out there every single day to try to help the team win," De La Cruz said. "If he makes the decision, there’s nothing I can do about it, but we can [argue] and see who wins.”
One set of games De La Cruz will miss will be during the World Baseball Classic in March while the Reds are in Spring Training.
He was asked to represent his country, but declined.
"It was the team’s choice because I was dealing with the quad and they didn’t want me to play," he said. "I mean, I want to play. I want to represent my country, but I believe in the team [the Reds]. I’ll definitely want to play in the future.”
The Reds will be counting on De La Cruz to provide more production in 2026, especially as the club has yet to find an impact hitter to bat behind him in the lineup. He did make some strides last year in cutting down strikeouts -- from a Major League-leading 218 in 2024 to 181 in '25.
De La Cruz felt that he also learned a lot from his '25 season.
"I learned I have to take care of myself before the game, after the game, in the field, outside of the field, like everywhere," De La Cruz said. "And take responsibility for myself.”