Dominican Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is coming off a season as the home run leader, Home Run Derby champion and now the new face of MLB The Show.
Vlad Jr. was revealed as the cover athlete of MLB The Show 24 on Tuesday. The Blue Jays' star hitter joins a long list of superstars featured on the cover of MLB's flagship video game.
Players like Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper have appeared on the cover of MLB The Show in recent years. The Marlins' Josh Chisholm Jr. was on the deck last year.
MLB The Show 24 featuring Vlad Jr. is available for PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.
Guerrero is only 24 years old, but he has already become one of the most feared hitters in baseball. He was selected to the All-Star Game for three consecutive seasons, was the home run co-champion in 2021 and won the Home Run Derby in 2023.
MLB The Show 24 introduced a unique feature to Vlad Jr.'s cover reveal. MLB The Show traveled to Guerrero's hometown in the Dominican Republic in December to film a special documentary about being named on the 2024 cover.
“Casting Vlad Jr. was very easy,” said Ramon Russell, product development, communications and brand strategist for MLB The Show for Sony. “But we really wanted to go further. That's why we shot the documentary for our card promotion.
“I'm pretty sure we're the first sports video game development studio to do this. We told him, 'Hey Vlad, instead of you coming to San Diego [donde se produce el juego]'How about visiting your hometown and showing some of the places that were most important to your life and how you grew up?' “So our fans can connect the dots and see everything that happened to make him a great athlete and now be on the cover of the game.”
The latest MLB The Show covers
2024: Vlad Guerrero Jr. (24)
2023: Josh Chisholm Jr. (24)
2022: Shohei Ohtani (26)
2021: Fernando Tadis Jr. (21)
2020: Javier Baez (26)
2019: Bryce Harper (25)
2018: Aaron Judge (25)
Part of that story is Vlad Jr. following in the footsteps of his father, Hall of Famer Wladimir Guerrero. Another link between the two is Vlad Jr.'s appearance on the cover of MLB The Show 24.
Vlad Sr. was on the cover of MLB 2006, a precursor to MLB The Show, the last version of the video game before it became “The Show”.
“It's amazing to see that kind of come full circle,” Russell said. “At the same time, it's Vlady Jr.'s story. It's Wladimir Guerrero Jr.'s story. His father plays a big part in it, but we wanted to make sure the focus was on Vlad Jr.”
This is another family honor that Vlad Jr. and Vlad Sr. share. Last year, they became the first father-son duo to hit the home run festival. This year, they are the first father-son duo to be the cover athletes for MLB's flagship game.
Vlad Sr. is coming off his MVP season for the Angels in 2004 and was featured on the cover of MLB 2006, which was released prior to the 2005 campaign. The following year, the game was retitled “MLB 06: The Show,” starring fellow Dominican David Ortiz as the first film.
Both Vladimir Sr. and Ortiz became Hall of Famers after being cover athletes for an MLB video game. (Fun fact: The same thing happened to Cooperstown rookie Joe Mauer. Mauer was on the cover of MLB The Show in 2010 and 2011.)
Big Poppy was also a big part of Vlad Jr.'s cover on Tuesday. Ortiz, a good friend of the Guerrero family, is the host of the MLB The Show 24 cover announcement stream called “Ride to Reveal.” Thanks to his connections with Vlad Jr., Vladimir Sr. and the entire baseball world of the Dominican Republic, he was also part of the documentary.
“Vlad Jr. spoke on the baseball field where he played and developed his skills, but his father and David Ortiz played on the same baseball field,” Russell added. “We were very happy, humbled, and very excited to delve deeper without saying, 'Here's a cover athlete, here's a cool cover.'” We wanted to delve deeper and tell a more human story.
