{"id":90951,"date":"2024-12-16T20:31:26","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T01:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=90951"},"modified":"2024-12-16T20:31:26","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T01:31:26","slug":"bryan-de-la-cruz-signs-braves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/16\/bryan-de-la-cruz-signs-braves\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Sign Power-Hitting Outfielder for One Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Sunday, the Atlanta Braves signed outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/delacbr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-12-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bryan De La Cruz<\/a> to a one-year, non-guaranteed contract. The right-handed hitter hit .233\/.271\/.384, 21 HR, 68 RBI, and 77 OPS+ for the Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates in 2024. For his major league <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/01\/de-la-cruz-hits-open-market\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">career<\/a>, which spans parts of four seasons, he\u2019s hit .253\/.297\/.407, 58 HR, 208 RBI, and 90 OPS+.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Braves?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Braves<\/a> today signed OF Bryan De La Cruz to a one-year, non-guaranteed contract for the 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Atlanta Braves (@Braves) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Braves\/status\/1868321378870735047?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 15, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Braves Sign Bryan De La Cruz<\/h2>\n<p>With De La Cruz\u2019s power numbers comes plenty of baggage, however, in the form of high chase and low contact rates along with minus defense. For his career, he\u2019s struck out in 25 percent of his plate appearances and walked in just 5.8 percent. Those numbers are trending in the wrong direction. In 2024, he had a 27.3 percent strikeout rate to go with his 4.7 percent walk rate. In the outfield, he\u2019s been \u201cworth\u201d -24 Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) and -14 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) over his career. His -9 FRAA and -7 DRS in 2024 contributed to those figures, indicating his defense is trending the wrong way. He\u2019s played all three outfield positions but is more suited to a corner spot.<\/p>\n<p>The Pirates <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/30\/pirates-trade-de-la-cruz\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">acquired<\/a> De La Cruz at the trade deadline last year for prospects <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=forres004gar&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-12-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Garret Forrester<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=shim--000jun&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-12-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jun-Seok Shim<\/a>. The Pirates may come to regret this one. But they were still in the National League Wild Card race at the time and were desperate for power hitting. Unfortunately, after De La Cruz\u2019s arrival, they were still desperate for power hitting. He produced a stat line of just .200\/.220\/.294, 3 HR, 17 RBI, and 42 OPS+ in 44 games with Pittsburgh. With De La Cruz eligible for arbitration in 2025 with a <a href=\"https:\/\/triblive.com\/sports\/bryan-de-la-cruz-projected-for-biggest-raise-among-pirates-9-arbitration-eligible-players\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">projected $4 million salary<\/a>, a 421 percent raise from his 2023 pay, the Pirates <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/11\/22\/pirates-non-tender-outfielders-pitcher\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">non-tendered<\/a> him and let him become a free agent.<\/p>\n<p>With the Braves, De La Cruz is now in his fourth organization. He was first signed by the Houston Astros as an amateur free agent in 2013. He\u2019ll surely welcome the opportunity to prove himself with a new team. With too many negatives outweighing his positives, however, one must wonder whether this is the last one.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sunday, the Atlanta Braves signed outfielder Bryan De La Cruz to a one-year, non-guaranteed contract. The right-handed hitter hit .233\/.271\/.384, 21 HR, 68 RBI, and 77 OPS+ for the Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates in 2024. For his major league career, which spans parts of four seasons, he\u2019s hit .253\/.297\/.407, 58 HR, 208 RBI, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":91105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1071,35],"tags":[5150,246,71,231],"class_list":["post-90951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-braves","category-mlb","category-news","tag-bryan-de-la-cruz","tag-houston-astros","tag-miami-marlins","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92227,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90951\/revisions\/92227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}