MLB is being proactive in promoting young stars

Major League Baseball is increasing the exposure it gives its top prospects to coincide with the youth movement within the sport.

An underreported and underappreciated aspect of baseball’s youth movement is happening during Spring Training.
If you hadn’t noticed it, that’s probably because it’s been lost in the flow of internet drivel devoted to the collision of baseball’s past and future.

The past was represented by Hall-of-Famer Goose Gossage, who ripped the unstoppable force that is baseball’s youth movement. His comments over Jose Bautista and bat-flippers everywhere received the most run in the blogosphere, but they weren’t the only target of his salvo. The young, analytical, sabermetric-wielding minds that are taking over baseball’s front offices and Ryan Braun were also targets.

The other force in the quarrel was Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper, who argued for a more flamboyant future in baseball in a piece by ESPN The Magazine. He argues that baseball needs more flair, something he and other young players would be more than willing to provide.

What you may have missed is that Major League Baseball appears to be siding with Harper. The evidence lies in the way MLB is promoting its young stars, even those who aren’t even major leaguers.

With the ubiquity of social media, fans can interact and become more familiar with not only players on their favorite team, but also their favorite team’s prospects. Before social media, prospects mostly stayed anonymous until they were promoted. Usually, they were merely footnotes in farm reports. Now we know which ones will have an impact on playoff races.

But that is changing at a rapid pace. For example, consider Brewers outfield prospect Brett Phillips, whose uniquely humorous laugh has spawned multiple viral videos. As one of the top prospects in baseball, let alone the Brewers’ system, fans’ recognition of Phillips is stratospheric compared to where it was when the Brewers received him from the Astros in the Carlos Gomez trade.

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And he hasn’t even had an at bat above Double-A.

Another good example is the Braves’ Mallex Smith. Smith was featured on the Braves’ Snapchat account during MLB’s Snapchat Day, which is the first of its kind in professional sports. (Which is another example of MLB’s openness to new ideas, but that’s a discussion for another post.)

Smith was also featured in a video by MLB’s Cut4, the league’s website devoted to off-the-wall baseball related stories, asking prospects about potential walk-up music. Again, Smith has exactly zero major league at bats.

One noteworthy aspect of the video is the prevalence of players of racial minorities, especially African-Americans. Every April 15, the discussion inevitably turns to MLB’s low number of African-American players relative to past decades. Promoting young players such as Smith, Byron Buxton and Anthony Alford shows baseball is trying to change the sport’s perception for an increasingly diverse and young audience.

It should be noted that this effort to connect with a younger audience does not reinforce the narrative that “baseball is dying.” On the contrary, it’s quite possible baseball has never been any healthier: it’s revenues are approaching $10 billion; attendance and local television ratings are high; and MLB, with MLB Advanced Media leading the way, is dominating the live streaming and mobile app markets with revenues approaching $1 billion.

Next: Grading each team's top prospect

The more appropriate takeaway is that baseball hopes to give its stars the same household cachet that NBA and NFL players have. While baseball as a sport is healthy, a Harper or an Andrew McCutchen will have a harder time pervading popular culture to the same extent Stephen Curry will. But if baseball’s gambit pays off, that may change.

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