By: John Egan
Sadly, social media is the way of the world right now. An athlete’s only job was to worry about playing their sport and excelling at it. Not anymore. Now, you need social media accounts, you have to create contact and you should engage with followers.
The same can be said for most industries. When it comes to stand up comedy, it used to be simple. You did stand up on the road, you hopefully got on “The Tonight Show” and then you get a TV show or tour the country and make money.
That isn’t the world anymore. Sure, you can still do stand up. But now you also need to record every set and post clips daily on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. You need to post only jokes on Twitter and not engage in any decisions or hot topics. While writing, performing and also learn editing skills, you need to make connections, travel and do comedy for free across the country in hopes of getting a paid spot in the future and somehow get booker information for shows. You also should start a podcast, produce your own shows and start a web series. See, everything is super easy with social media!
And the Milwaukee Brewers will be no different this season. In a joint announcement with Major League baseball, times are changing. From now on, the starting line-up will be whoever has the most Instagram followers. MLB and Milwaukee’s front office helped coordinate and launch this new effort. So before Training Camp is even in full-swing, let’s see the Brewers 2023 Opening Day batting order! You will see their position, name, follower count and Insta handle.
Brewers Line-Up By Followers
- LF – Christian Yelich – 619,000 – christianyelich
- SS – Willy Adames – 132,000 – willy2802
- 2B – Luis Urias – 129,000 – luisurias97
- DH – William Contreras – 117,000 – williamcontreras42
- RF – Jesse Winker – 60,700 – jessewinker
- C – Victor Caratini – 44,500 – caratini17
- CF – Garrett Mitchell – 42,700 – garrettmitchell5
- 1B – Keston Hiura – 34,800 – kestdaddy
- 3B – Mike Brosseau – 13,600 – mikebrosseau
Biggest Takeaways
Obviously missing Rowdy Tellez in this line-up is huge. He was absolutely the favorite to start on Opening Day at first base. Mike Brosseau making a surprise appearance at third with an impressive showing on Instagram as well. He just barely beat out Abraham Toro for the starting spot. You could easily switch positions with Contreras and Caratini. But with him batting clean-up, I would rather have the newer Willy DH.
Here is the rest of the active roster rankings:
Abraham Toro – 13,100 – abtor31
Tyrone Taylor – 11,700 – rone15
Brice Turang – 9,756 – bturang1
Payton Henry – 8,348 – p_anthony15
Owen Miller – 7,478 – owenmiller8
Rowdy Tellez – 2,978 – rowdytellez44
Blake Perkins – 1,340 – blakeeperkins
The biggest takeaway of all of this is that the Brewers fanbase needs to catch up on following some players. Rowdy Tellez needs our love. It’s clear Rowdy isn’t a huge social media guy and only has a few posts, but we should still give him some follows anyways. All of the players could use some support and some extra followers. Who knows, Rowdy could pull an upset and sneak into the line-up, or Toro could pass Brosseau.
Starting Rotation Next?
So that begs the question, will the pitching rotation be next for Major League Baseball? Probably. They will be next if the Insta-Line-Ups, as the league is calling them, are a success.
So what would the Brewers starting rotation look like with this new model? Let’s take a look.
Brewers Starting Rotation
Corbin Burnes – 52,700 – corbinburnes
Freddy Peralta – 41,400 – fpd04_
Brandon Woodruff – 21,300 – b_woodruff24
Eric Lauer – 8,035 – elauer10
Aaron Ashby – 7,291 – aaronashbyy
Freddy Peralta over Brandon Woodruff at number two is surprising, and you hope it doesn’t lead to any clubhouse riffs. But they have been playing long enough and might petition MLB to switch due to Peralta’s possible injuries. Aaron Ashby is also battling the injury bug. He might not start, but currently beats out Wade Miley and Jason Alexander. Why is that? Because both players do not have an Instagram account.
I can’t really blame Alexander for that one. Jason Alexander the actor is on Instagram and probably eats up a lot of the traffic. The only other Jason Alexander on the platform is a conspiracy theorist. I can understand why he wants to avoid all of that. He’s a great follow on Twitter though, so follow him there at _jay_alexander.
Best Moment in Researching
While researching these accounts and finding the numbers, my favorite discovery by far was Jesse Winker. He makes the starting line-up and has the 5th highest follower count. The best part? He has zero posts. Absolutely epic.
So will this new approach work in 2023? Only time will tell. It could force players to start interacting with Instagram more, but there could be some serious backlash. They are being paid to play baseball. Players shouldn’t be forced to post their lives so that Mark Zuckerberg makes more money. But I think we all can agree that Rowdy Tellez could use our support. It doesn’t take much to just give folks a follow. Let’s get him to at least 5K before Opening Day! #FollowRowdy
This article is a parody and for entertainment purposes.
John Egan Comedian & Writer 