The Phillies signed outfielder Bryan De La Cruz to a minor league contract earlier this month, per Matt Eddy of Baseball America. Reporter Mike Rodriguez first mentioned the two sides were in agreement and noted that the client of Premier Talent Sports & Entertainment received an invite to major league camp next spring. The team hasn’t formally announced the pickup, though many clubs wait to announce their minor league deals and non-roster invitees in bulk later in the offseason.
De La Cruz showed promise early in his career with Miami, hitting .269/.318/.430 with 18 homers, 27 doubles and a pair of triples in his first 574 plate appearances from 2021-22. He popped 19 homers in 2023, but poor glovework and an OBP barely north of .300 made him a roughly replacement-level player. De La Cruz had a better start in ’24, connecting on 18 long balls through his first 454 turns at the plate. The Pirates, in need of affordable power as they hoped to make a Wild Card push, acquired him in a deal that immediately went south.
Pittsburgh, at the time, was acquiring a player with three-plus years of club control remaining. However, he hit so poorly with the Bucs (.200/.220/.294 in 168 plate appearances) that the Pirates simply moved on after the season. De La Cruz landed in Atlanta but struggled badly in 50 big league plate appearances and in 11 Triple-A games. He eventually went to the Yankees on a minor league deal and posted solid, if unspectacular numbers with their Triple-A club in Scranton: 368 plate appearances, 15 homers, eight steals, .271/.340/.456 (111 wRC+).
The righty-swinging De La Cruz has some power but an over-aggressive approach and suspect defensive skills in the corners. He also lacks the track record against left-handed pitching you’d prefer to see out of a corner outfielder. He decimated southpaws in a small sample during his rookie season, but dating back to 2022 he’s actually been slightly better versus righties (and well below-average against both overall).
There’s no harm in taking a non-roster look at an experienced outfielder who’ll play all of next season at 29, but De La Cruz is more of a depth signing than anything else. The Phils will be in the market for outfielders this winter, but it’d probably take multiple spring injuries and a big performance from De La Cruz for him to make the club. The likeliest scenario is that he heads to Triple-A Lehigh Valley next season with a shot to mash his way into the big league picture. If he’s able to do that, he’d be controllable through at least 2028, but there’s a long way to go before that future control is any kind of consideration.
Would love to see this guy make a comeback… although I’d still have Castellanos over him at this point.
Poor fielder and free swinger? An exact Castellanos replacement!
lol
you know it’s bad when even the Pirates don’t want this guy
He started with the Astros farm system, then the Marlins, then the Pirates, now the Phillies minor leagues.
@ASTROS27!: You missed him playing w/the Braves early last season. Wish I had.
Thanks for the reminder.
Take Suwinski also please.
You heard this from me, earlier in the month, if you read my comment! MLBTR apparently didn’t.
Oh! The Phillies have had this ‘unannounced’ deal listed on their Transactions page at MLB.com, dated 11/06/25.
Need RH bats like this to compete for bench job and stash at AAA, on the cheap. Lane Thomas, Starling Marte, Dylan Moore are 3 more guys they should target for OF role that can spell Marsh/Crawford against LHP. Moore particularly, is a league minimum salary veteran that could be the 26th, if they decide to trade out options Weston Wilson – who acted as 6th INF’er at times.
Take what little bit of value Johan Rojas and Michael Mercado have – and offer them to a FO you’re familiar with that needs a CF’er – Anaheim Angels, for Reid Detmers. Lefty has upside and pedigree to succeed in Philly. He can occupy that swing man role the Phillies FO covets so much (gave Joe Ross $4M). Could make a couple of starts in April until Wheeler is ready to go and then be a stretched out long man/spot starter. Set to make $2.75M. I’d ask them if they had any interest in Castellanos to replace Ward, while I was at it.
Please, no more platoons. They need to find three guys who can play every day. If you need to platoon it means you’re not a very good player. And when I say every day, I don’t mean 162. And every day player is a guy who will start between 145–150 games. But I am really sick of players like Brandon marsh who can only hit right handed pitching. Can’t win a World Series with guys like him.