After a mid-pandemic postseason that saw 16 teams competing for a title, the Los Angeles Dodgers were crowned World Series Champions having defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in six games. Beyond the diamond, MLB players took to social media in record numbers to attract and engage fans. As a result, athletes from both of these teams saw massive engagement numbers and audience growth.
We analyzed every MLB player over the past month to see who made the biggest impact on social throughout this unprecedented playoff run.
Trevor Bauer, Mookie Betts, Cody Bellinger, and Joc Pederson all generated over one million engagements on Twitter and Instagram combined.
Betts ranked first in Instagram engagements (1.27 million) and 6th in Twitter Engagements (165 thousand), while Bauer finished with the most Twitter engagements (1.05 million) and the 8th most Instagram engagements (476.7 thousand). Bauer also gained the most followers on Twitter (42.6 thousand), while Betts added the most followers on Instagram (178 thousand).
Many other Dodgers also saw success on social during the World Series run. Six of the top ten players with the highest audience growth were Dodger players (Betts, Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager, Justin Turner, Kike Hernandez, Will Smith). Additionally, L.A. made up six of the ten most-engaging MLB players over the past month (Betts, Turner, Joc Pederson, Bellinger, Hernandez, Seager).
Although the Rays came up short in the World Series, many of their athletes grew at the highest rates. The team had five of the top six athletes in terms of highest rate of growth (Randy Arozarena, Peter Fairbanks, Michael Brosseau, Diego Castillo, Ji-Man Choi). Arozarena grew his Instagram account by 616 percent and added the 4th most Instagram followers (63.9 thousand), only behind Betts, Bellinger, and Seager.
Looking beyond the World Series teams, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Ronald Acuna Jr. continued to elevate their endorsement value with social. Tatis Jr. generated the fourth-most engagements (747.2 thousand) and gained the fourth-most followers among all MLB athletes (75.4 thousand). Acuna Jr. generated the 11th-most engagements (379.5 thousand) and gained the eight-most followers (60.1 thousand).
Social activity was at a peak leaguewide throughout the playoffs. Ten MLB athletes shared over 100 posts. Robert Stock led the way with 446 posts, all on Twitter. Marcus Stroman published 428 posts, and Trevor May, Jose Trevino, Yu Darvish, and Trevor Bauer each had over 150 posts.
