It's superhuman Elly as you've never seen him before (in Claymation!)

CINCINNATI – It often feels like there is nothing that Elly De La Cruz can't do on a baseball field. In a new spot featuring the Reds' All-Star shortstop, a Claymation world was created where De La Cruz is truly able to do anything and everything.

All of the figurative language about De La Cruz – the similes, the metaphors and the hyperbole – came to life for one eye-catching video titled "Maxed Out," for Major League Baseball's "Baseball is Something Else" campaign. It debuted on Thursday across MLB's television, digital and social media platforms.

Created by Bodega, Wieden+Kennedy's social-first creative team, the unique stop-motion artist known as Azxd and his company, Sports Claymation, brought this form of De La Cruz to life.

“Elly is, I would say, a once-in-a-generation talent," Azxd (pronounced Uh-Zod) said. "He’s genuinely a real create-a-player. I would say his skills, his capabilities – they don’t even seem real. In a medium like stop-motion, and Claymation specifically, that does a great job of turning the natural into supernatural and turning the real into the unreal. So it was really a perfect match for Elly.”

The commercial opens with kids playing MLB The Show and trying to create a player. When lightning strikes their home, “Superhuman mode” is activated and De La Cruz appears. His skill settings suddenly max out and he is brought to life as the total package of power, strength and speed.

What follows highlights and amplifies De La Cruz's five-tool abilities on the field. He zooms through a brick wall, hits a baseball into space, makes thrown balls shoot flames and more. When stealing home, he is sitting and enjoying a cup of cocoa before the pitched ball reaches the catcher.

"La Cocoa," not coincidentally, is De La Cruz's nickname. The 23-year-old also voiced his own lines in the commercial.

"Elly has such a unique look. I love how it transforms when he’s in motion," said Azxd, who is based in Portland, Oregon. "His hair and necklaces bounce and flow at a slower speed while his arms and legs move at a faster blur-like pace. It’s definitely mesmerizing to watch him run. Because the film is nonstop action, my favorite moment is seeing him enjoying a well-earned cup of La Cocoa."

Creating De La Cruz in a Claymation world took a little more than a month, Azxd said, but it required many long hours. Several puppets of De La Cruz were created, and of other characters. All of the figurines were built by hand.

There were more than a dozen people working on the project alongside Azxd, including fabricators, animators, producers and crew.

The stop-motion process required just over 3,000 photos to be taken.

“Stop-motion is photo by photo. You take a photo and move it a little bit more, take a photo," Azxd said. “You’d be surprised with how quick it can come together. I had a scrappy team so I can’t take all the credit. We have talented creators here in Portland, so we were able to move fast and get a lot done in a short amount of time.”

About to enter his third Major League season since debuting in 2023, De La Cruz quickly became a transformative talent in the game with his exciting brand of play. In 2024, he batted .259 with an .809 OPS and 5.2 WAR while leading MLB with 67 stolen bases. He was Cincinnati's leader with 25 home runs, 36 doubles and 10 triples and made his first All-Star Game.

In a video of De La Cruz seeing the finished product of the "Maxed Out" commercial on a phone screen, he was smiling and laughing while watching his Claymation doppelganger.

"That's crazy. I like it a lot," De La Cruz said.

Earlier this week, De La Cruz was revealed as one of three young stars – along with Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson and Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes – to be featured on the video game cover for MLB The Show 25.

Unlike that game, the puppets and their motion in Azxd's spot maintain an old-school look. That was intentional.

“I guess my process, I care more about capturing the feel and an energy rather than trying to pursue a perfection of any sort in that medium," Azxd said. "Stop-motion is normally a very tedious process, but I like to try to push and train myself in mind and body to endure the long hours and go at a break-neck speed. It’s constantly trying to push more analog than trying to create it more digitally.”