Vlad Guerrero Jr. pulls off masterful Instagram troll that had baseball fans freaking out
Calm down, baseball fans and fantasy fanatics, it doesn’t appear that Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the prized Toronto Blue Jays prospect, is coming to the major leagues just yet. Despite what appear to be his best efforts to troll us all on Instagram.
What happened?
Vlad Jr. — the 19-year-old son of soon-to-be Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero who is in Double-A for the Jays — posted a picture of himself Monday afternoon at the JFK Airport in New York City. The Jays start a series with the Mets on Tuesday in Queens, so social-media sleuths were immediately on the case.
One problem:
Ok, after literally scrolling it seems Vlad posted the same picture on Insta today that he did in December. pic.twitter.com/FjdDHWrGU6
— Faizal Khamisa (@SNFaizalKhamisa) May 14, 2018
Yep, it turns out Vlad Jr. posted the same exact photo of himself in December at JFK. Talk about blowback from a throwback. It’s like he knew sports fans are obsessive and love to jump to conclusions about players!
Baseball Twitter’s excitement tanked and instead, it looks like Vlad Jr. is an A+ troll — or he’s completely unaware that baseball fans are literally hoping every day that he gets called up. Even our own Jeff Passan was talking about it hours before Vlad Jr.’s IG selection:
Update: Two weeks after I tried to argue that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. belongs with the Blue Jays now, he is up to .397/.447/.645 at Double-A with more walks than strikeouts and a K rate of 8.5%. Pretty much everything written in the piece still applies: https://t.co/ombqwdSPLP
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 14, 2018
All this for a 19-year-old in the minors?
Yeah, pretty much. Now that Ronald Acuna Jr. is up with the Atlanta Braves, Vlad Jr. is the prospect to watch in baseball. It helps that he plays in the Blue Jays system and Canadian baseball fans LOVE Vlad Sr.
Beyond that, Vlad Jr. has been off to a flaming-hot start this season in Double-A. He’s hitting .397/.447/.645 with five homers and 36 RBIs in 31 games. He’s been hitting homers that look like this:
Meanwhile in @MiLB, Vlad Guerrero Jr. out here damaging hotel property. pic.twitter.com/3Dv7is4z0y
— MLB (@MLB) May 8, 2018
How did it all end?
The way enough social-media driven stories end — he deleted the post!
And after trolling the entire internet, Vlad Jr has now taken down the post. pic.twitter.com/SkdEIYo6g6
— Gideonimir Turkero Jr. (@GideonTurk) May 14, 2018
And apparently Vlad Jr. is still hanging with his Double-A teammates:
Vlad Jr.’s Double A teammate posted this on his Insta an hour ago. Vladdy wearing different shoes than in the airport pic. I’m so confused. pic.twitter.com/ocoMYfxDMK
— Cespedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) May 14, 2018
Vlad Jr. is not coming to MLB today, it turns out, but he’s coming soon. And if you weren’t already paying attention, you should be.
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Mike Oz is a writer at Yahoo Sports. Contact him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
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