Twitter will feature daily at bats of fan-chosen players during the 2019 MLB season. Each morning, the MLB’s official account will poll followers to vote on one of four hitters, whose every plate appearance that day will be shown live to Twitter users in the U.S.
This year, near real-time highlights of games will feature on @MLB and, for the first time, every single home run will be posted on Twitter. Big league hitters slugged 5,585 home runs in 2018, the fourth-highest total in baseball history. The 2017 season had a record 6,105 homers, and 2016 ranks third with 5,610.
The @MLB account will also carry live shows during key moments of the baseball calendar, including the inaugural London Series between the Red Sox and Yankees as well as the Home Run Derby, All-Star Game, trade deadline, and postseason.
SportTechie Takeaway
The daily fan vote for live look-ins of a featured player’s at bats follows a recent deployment of a single-player isolation cam for the second halves of some nationally televised NBA on TNT basketball broadcasts. A persistent criticism around MLB has been its inability to market many of its biggest stars, so this individual exposure could play a small role in remedying that.