Two Cincinnati Reds Players Picked as Breakout Stars in 2026

CINCINNATI -- Elly De La Cruz and Chase Burns are two fan favorites among Reds fans. They're both talented players and really good people off the field.

This upcoming season is an opportunity for both of them to take the next step and become core members of the Reds for the foreseeable future.

MLB.com's David Adler recently wrote about 10 players across Major League Baseball who could break out in 2026, resembling breakout seasons in 2025 from their peers.

Adler believes De La Cruz could have a breakout season similar to Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, who clubbed 60 home runs and finished second in AL MVP voting on a Mariners team that came within one win of their first World Series in franchise history.

Here is what Adler said about De La Cruz's potential breakout in 2026:

"We picked Elly for this same type of breakout last year (saying he'd be the 2025 version of 2024 Bobby Witt Jr.), and even though that didn't quite come true, we're doing it again," Adler wrote. "De La Cruz's all-around skill set is just too elite to not believe an MVP-level season is coming."

He looked like a true superstar in the first half of 2025, and hopefully, you can chalk up his slump in the second half to playing through a partially torn quad that whole time. A healthy De La Cruz has the power, speed and defensive upside (if … and it's a big "if" … he can stop making errors) to be one of the best players in the game.

De La Cruz is going into his fourth season, and he has high expectations after an electric debut in 2023. There is an incentive for him to at least come very close to putting it all together.

Chase Burns wowed in his Major League debut against the New York Yankees. I was in the ballpark that night, and it was an incredible atmosphere. Burns struck out the first four batters he faced and had five through two innings. He finished with eight strikeouts, no walks, through five innings.

Adler believes Burns could have a breakout season resembling Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who went 12-8 with a 2.49 ERA and had 201 strikeouts against just 59 walks. In two seasons, Yamamoto is already 7-1 in the Postseason and 4-0 in the World Series. The fact that Burns is being mentioned in the same breath as Yamamoto says something.

Here is what Adler said about Burns:

"Yamamoto arrived in the Major Leagues with massive expectations in 2024, but that first season was rocky at times, and it took him until 2025 to re-establish himself as one of the best pitchers in the world. Burns' situation isn't exactly the same, since he came up as a prospect last season, not from overseas. But he had all the hype of being a No. 2 overall Draft pick and one of the top pitching prospects in baseball, and he had a similar rocky-but-promising debut."

"The 23-year-old had a 4.57 ERA, but Burns also showed flashes of brilliance, with four double-digit strikeout games in eight starts and a ridiculous 13.9 K/9 for the season. He has all the stuff to be a dominant starter in the Majors, starting with his lethal fastball-slider combo, with the heater averaging 99 mph and the slider averaging 91. And since he's already missing bats at an elite level (32% swing-and-miss rate, 36% strikeout rate), then Burns' big breakout is coming sooner rather than later."

Burns's role on the team is interesting. He throws hard enough that he could maybe push to be this team's staff ace. However, Burns also throws hard enough to have a role in the bullpen, coming in to throw gas in high-leverage situations.

De La Cruz and Burns are both going to be really fun to watch in 2026. If they both play at their best, the Reds could be playing in October again this season and, maybe this time, advance in the Postseason.

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