Newest MLB advertisement featuring Buck Showalter, Daniel Vogelbach tops the Super Bowl commercial

The world was abuzz when it was announced the New York Mets would run a Super Bowl commercial. What would they possibly be announcing? It turns out it was an advertisement running locally to drum up interest in the coming year. Fans enjoyed the commercial. It did what it had to do.

This wasn’t the end of stardom for the 2023 Mets. Commercials for the MLB season are about to overtake our screens for at least a week. One features Mets manager Buck Showalter and designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach in a promotion of the new rules.

Quick. Funny. A little self-deprecating. You don’t need to know a thing about who these two people are to enjoy it.

We have a new reigning champion of Mets commercials this year

MLB gets criticized a lot for growing the game. A 30-second commercial about the increased size of the bases isn’t going to suddenly convince a whole generation to start watching and paying for season tickets. Start small. Win over the fans with some cleverness and explain the changes you’ve put into the game for the coming year.

Don Draper would be proud of this one by Major League Baseball. They chose two of the best people in the game for it. Now to convince Joey Gallo to do a spot on the shift and they’ve got two of the major rule changes covered. Do younger generations know about Mike Hargrove and Steve Trachsel? We might need two others to explain the pitch clock.

Pitting these two commercials against each other, this latest one is the superior advertisement in terms of entertainment. The Super Bowl commercial tried to throw a bunch of little jokes that didn’t hit too hard at the audience whereas MLB settled on the single premise of a larger and seemingly slow runner trying to steal a base simply because they’re a little bit bigger. In many ways it’s almost tongue-in-cheek for the fans who believe this part of the rule changes will lead to an increase of swiped bags. The number of pickoff attempts is what should have pitchers and catchers more frightened.

You can’t explain all of that in one commercial. So we get this one instead. 

One thing is certain, times are changing for the Mets. And when is Pete Alonso going to get his Coke commercial? I’ll even settle for an Alaskan tourism ad where tourists from New York visit to see the polar bears and find the Mets first baseman.