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The potential future face of baseball is getting a big dose of the spotlight, with maybe much more to come.
Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz is a core part of two separate baseball marketing campaigns debuting this week, showcasing just how highly many of the sport’s decision-makers think of the third-year phenom.
The Dominican star is one of three rising talents chosen to be the cover athletes for MLB: The Show 25, the latest iteration of the long-running baseball simulation video game franchise, along with Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes and Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson. The selection of three cover athletes to share the honor is a first in the game’s two-decade history.
De La Cruz, meanwhile, is starring alone in a spot in MLB’s “Baseball Is Something Else” marketing campaign, showcasing his wide range of on-field skills in a Claymation video that debuted Thursday and likens him to a real-world cheat code. The ad is airing in both English and Spanglish across a range of MLB-controlled outlets, those of league broadcast partners, and other digital media sites.
Unique Circumstances
De La Cruz’s current fame certainly is not on the level of MLB megastars such as the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, Yankees’ Aaron Judge, and Mets’ Juan Soto, and he’s also toiling with the Reds—a smaller-market team that has reached the playoffs just once in the last 12 years, during the pandemic-altered 2020 season.
Not even arbitration-eligible yet, De La Cruz’s 2025 salary of $800,000 is barely above this year’s league minimum of $760,000.
The 23-year-old, however, led MLB in stolen bases last year with 67, is already one of the game’s most dynamic players both offensively and defensively, and last year became just the fifth player since 1901 with 20 home runs and 60 stolen bases in a season. That youth and varied skill set has already put him on a short list of MLB players who could potentially sign a $1 billion contract.
The league’s marketing of its top stars, particularly young ones like De La Cruz, has long been a subject of criticism. Last fall, commissioner Rob Manfred acknowledged that as an important growth opportunity, saying, “It’s about the focus on the players, trying to grow the game into a more national product.”
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