MLB Twitter Account Power Rankings

Eh

25. Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies)

Followers: 1,180,920

Best recent tweet:

Like the White Sox, the Phillies got off to an incredibly hot start to the season that saw them competing with the Mets and Nationals atop the NL East.  Unfortunately for Philadelphia, they’ve come crashing down in the past few weeks and are now trending back toward the bottom of the NL, as they were expected to entering the season.

The Phillies boast some incredible young talent in the form of Odubel Herrera, Maikel Franco and Aaron Nola, but for some reason tend to focus on their heap of veterans looking to resurrect their careers.

Philadelphia falls into the same pitfalls of the other teams near the bottom of these rankings, but do one thing especially bad.  Graphics.

Just take a look at that lineup card.

That graphic looks like it was made in PowerPoint.  It’s time to break out InDesign and get into 2016.

But the Phillies have actually used gifs fairly frequently, and to positive results.

One thing holding them from the top 20 is this questionable #GoPhils graphic, that they seem to use more often than not.

If the Phillies stray away from that, they’ll be shooting up these rankings in no time.

24. Minnesota Twins (@Twins)

Followers: 390,141

Best recent tweet:

The Twins have been an utter disappointment to start the season, and that’s shown in their Twitter content.  While it’s clear their digital team is trying their best, there’s just not much to work with in the Twin Cities.

However, that doesn’t stop them from creating some of the best graphics of any MLB team.

Solid image, clear lineup and all the information necessary.  Pretty much the opposite of the Phillies lineup card.

Where the Twins lack is in their in-game content, as they typically share stock images or the dreaded stadium graphic.

Really not sure how this picture helps engagement.  Let’s see something from the game.

Oh, nice!  A home run!  Aaaand a stadium graphic.  At the very least, a picture of Grossman would’ve been better.

Aside from those issues, the Twins seem to be trending in the right direction on Twitter and on the field.  Add some humor, and they’ll be in a solid position going forward.

23. Miami Marlins (@Marlins)

Followers: 199,976

Best recent tweet:

There hasn’t been much fan support for the Miami Marlins since owner Jeffrey Loria opened their new stadium, and that’s pretty evident with their follower count on Twitter.  Just think that some Triple-A teams have around 50,000 followers.  It’s hard to imagine that the Marlins only have 200,000.

But that isn’t stopping the Marlins from producing quality content from time to time. With Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Fernandez in tow, the Marlins have plenty to work with in terms of marketability.  On days when Fernandez isn’t pitching, however, the team seems to lack in originality.

When it’s #JoséDay, the team really seems to thrive.

Their graphics are very clean and nice to look at, too.  Bonus points for the roof status.

In the team’s bio, the hashtag #FishFamily is featured, and surely they can think of something better than that.  It’s great that the Marlins are capitalizing on Fernandez’s star power, but they’ll need to do a better job with their other players to keep up with some of the other teams across the league.

22. New York Yankees (@Yankees)

Followers: 1,683,075

Best recent tweet:

The Yankees are still arguably the most popular team in MLB, but like the Dodgers, their Twitter falls into the same pitfalls as most of the other teams toward the bottom of these rankings.  Score updates become mundane, videos are linked to MLB.com and in-game images don’t tell a story.

At times, however, the Yankees Twitter has a personality that makes scrolling through their feed entertaining.  They even recognized they had made history with their 2-1, one-hit victory over the Rays last week with the hashtag #StartSpreadingTheNews

Note: That hashtag is rather useless, as it doesn’t really provide a feed of information to follow.  We’ll excuse it for now, since most teams around the league do similar things.

The main pitfall of the Yankees account is in their graphics.

Sure, the graphic isn’t as bad as the Phillies, but the dreaded slant is back along with text that just seems to be floating in empty space.  Ugh.

They do make good use of gifs and videos on occasion, which keeps them near the top 20.

21. Los Angeles Angels (@Angels)

Followers: 458,155

Best recent tweet:

The Angels have arguably the best player in baseball in Mike Trout, and do their best to utilize his star power.  But the main positive to come from the Angels Twitter is that they’re one of the few teams to provide visual updates throughout games.

Videos would be nice, but it’s better than the standard text score update.  Aside from that, their graphics are solid, but could be improved.

Not sure what’s going on with the gray bars behind Albert Pujols, but it’s kind of distracting.  Keeping the image of the stadium in the background would most likely work better.  Their more impressive graphics come in the form of game notes, something many teams don’t feature.

The main knock on the Angels is their stale use of language, as many of their posts are just a bit too formal.

Next: 20-16: Worth a Follow