Doug McKain turned a Tuesday night Dodgers-Reds result into a trade idea, saying he would trade the farm including Josue De Paula for Elly De La Cruz after Cincinnati’s 3-2 loss. He paired the pitch with a reminder that Mookie Betts has held down shortstop well enough that a move back to second base could come sooner rather than later.
The timing matters because De La Cruz is not being talked about like a normal trade target. He has three years of arbitration eligibility left after the 2026 season, and that keeps him in a range where a club can still imagine paying him before he reaches the open market. McKain’s post landed in the middle of that valuation game, where one prospect name is enough to signal how expensive the rest of the package would have to be.
That is where Josue De Paula becomes more than a name in a social media post. If a Dodgers package were ever built for De La Cruz, it would not stop with one prospect. The logic of a deal like that would require multiple premium pieces, because the return would have to match a player viewed as close to untouchable. De La Cruz’s combination of age, control, and upside is what drives that price, and it is why fans are debating whether the farm would really go on the table.
There is also a harder wrinkle in the background. The idea that no MLB organization would sell the farm for De La Cruz does not square neatly with the fact that Boston reportedly already tried at last month’s trade deadline. An offer was on the table, but the talks went nowhere, which suggests the asking price was high enough to stop a deal even before any final push. In other words, the market has already tested the ceiling once and walked away.
For Reds fans, the cost of keeping him is still manageable for now. De La Cruz should make somewhere between $6 million and $8 million through arbitration next season, and if he were a free agent this winter, that figure would be about eight times higher. That gap explains why the speculation keeps coming back, and why a post from McKain, coming right after a 3-2 game, can still kick up a real conversation about what it would take to land him.
