The 2019 MLB season has reached its midpoint, and that means it’s finally time for All-Star Week and the 90th edition of baseball’s annual Midsummer Classic. Tonight, baseball’s top stars will take the field in Cleveland to compete against the best athletes the game has to offer.
In anticipation of tonight’s All-Star Game, we evaluated the top 100 players in Major League Baseball to see who’s been driving the most impact on social through the first half of the season.
Since Opening Day, no MLB player has shared more content on social media than Toronto Blue Jays pitcher and 2019 All-Star Marcus Stroman, who has posted on average more than six times per day. This high level of activity has helped Stroman lead the league in athlete-driven engagements, commanding more than 2.4 million over the first half of the season.
Not far behind Stroman was All-Star and perennial MVP candidate Mike Trout, who generated 2.1 million engagements over that same period, despite only posting 95 times. With more than 4.6 million total followers across his social accounts, Trout has by far the largest following in all of baseball, topping the second-most followed athlete, Bryce Harper, by more than 1.5 million followers.
In terms of growth, the athlete who added the most followers during the first half was Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who finally made his major league debut after years of being hyped as one of the best prospects in baseball. Vlad Jr. added more than 188 thousand followers in his first three months in the big leagues, not including the surge he saw during his performance in Monday night’s Home Run Derby.
Following Vlad Jr. closely was Christian Yelich, another All-Star who has continued to dominate after winning last year’s NL MVP award. Yelich has added 179 thousand followers this season, bringing him to a total of 583 thousand followers across all of social media.
Despite being outside the top 30 in total audience, Yelich has garnered the most video views this season and ranks fifth in total engagements, validating the effort that he and his team have put forth in creating quality content for his followers to enjoy.
The fire to be great burns from within. Amazing speech and insight into why you’re at the top! Congrats! pic.twitter.com/1Qm1VVutFj
— Christian Yelich (@ChristianYelich) June 25, 2019
MLB's top 100 athletes on social
Below is our analysis of the top 100 MLB athletes on social media. The ranking breaks down the audience, activity, engagement, and growth on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram from March 28, 2019, to July 2, 2019.
