Elly De La Cruz has already cemented himself as one of the fastest players in baseball, but the Cincinnati Reds shortstop went one step further when he said he could beat Team USA sprinter Noah Lyles in a race.

From the moment he burst onto the scene in 2023, Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz has set himself apart as one of the most electrifying athletes in baseball.

The 22-year-old is already up to 102 stolen bases in his career. Nobody else has more than 72 in that same span.

De La Cruz ranked No. 1 in MLB with a top sprint speed of 30.5 feet per second in 2023, per Baseball Savant. This season, he ranked No. 3 at 30.0 feet per second.

And yet, the rising star still might be overestimating just how fast he is.

Team USA sprinter Noah Lyles – who won gold in the 100-meter dash at the 2024 Paris Olympics with an official time of 9.784 seconds – recently accepted a challenge from YouTuber IShowSpeed. Lyles barely eked out a win in the 50-meter race for $100K, and when De La Cruz saw the video, he wasn’t particularly impressed.

“They think they’re fast,” De La Cruz posted on social media. “I’ll beat them for sure.”

At his gold medal pace, Lyles had an average speed of 33.5 feet per second. De La Cruz’s top speed of 30.5 feet per second is pulled from his fastest one-second window, rather than an average across nearly 10 seconds like Lyles, and he is still 8.9% slower.