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With players across Major League ballclubs now firmly engaged in Spring Training, opendorse – the leading athlete marketing platform that helps the biggest brands in sports share content on social – released its ranking of the Top 10 Most Engaging Players in Baseball during the 2018-19 offseason. Leading the way was Houston Astros star Alex Bregman, whose total engagements are more than double those of the second player on the list, Marcus Stroman of the Toronto Blue Jays.
“MLB players have some of the best stories in sports and it’s great to see many of their younger stars in such diverse markets leading the charge on social,” said Blake Lawrence, opendorse co-founder and CEO. “Baseball’s opportunity to take the next step in player marketing has never been more clear, and we are looking forward to helping the players and their partners engage more fans in 2019.
The Top 10 has no players from the same market, both a rarity and an opportunity for MLB. While a big part of the engagement growth is on Instagram, a growing number of engaged players are taking more to Twitter as well as a way to reach fans. Even more interesting is the Latino influence among MLB players on social, with half of the top ten coming from Latin American countries. The complete Top ten is here, based off total engagements, which includes every like, share, retweet, comment and other social factors each players’ posts received during the indicated time period.
Top 10:
1. Alex Bregman, Astros
2. Marcus Stroman, Blue Jays
3. Mookie Betts, Red Sox
4. Javier Baez, Cubs
5. Robinson Cano, Mets
6. Yasiel Puig, Reds
7. Edwin Encarnacion, Mariners
8. Yadier Molina, Cardinals
9. Joc Pederson, Dodgers
10 Aaron Judge, Yankees
Another highly engaging player on social is former NL batting champion and free agent, Jose Reyes. His Instagram activity alone produced nearly 5 million total engagements during this past offseason.