Study Shows Marlins Are Worst in the League at Social Media

It's November, but the Miami Marlins have still found a way to disappoint you. This time, though, you likely played a part in their terrible performance. 

According to a new study, the Marlins and their fans leave the smallest social media footprint of any team in the league. Of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball, the Marlins rank dead last in Twitter followers (170,000) and Facebook friends (580,000) and place last, or near the bottom, in fan growth and fan interactions on both platforms. Basically, the study found that the Marlins tweet out things and everyone ignores them, which sounds about exactly right. 

The study counted unique interactions on Twitter — i.e., retweets of team-related subject matter, favorites of a team tweet, or replies on tweets from the profile account. On Facebook, it counted shares, likes and comments — even negative comments. A team could theoretically be terrible but leave a huge social media footprint because haters are trolling. It doesn't appear that is the case with the Marlins. They inspire neither love nor hate. 

Not surprisingly, the Yankees and Red Sox top the list. New York and Boston fans make up the best social media presence with well over 1 million followers across the board for each team and more interactions than many teams combined. The Yankees themselves actually have 35 percent more followers on Facebook than the MLB page does. The data is according to research compiled by Socialbakers, a company that analyzes social media followings. 

We'll speculate that the low ranking is not the fault of Marlins' marketing department but, rather, terrible moves made by management for more than a decade. 

Marlins fans are coming off enduring one of the team's most disappointing seasons ever, which is saying a lot considering the depths of depression the team has taken them throughout its existence. Coming into the year, hype around the team was high following the long-term commitment to Giancarlo Stanton and the addition of players like Dee Gordon and Ichiro Suzuki — but it all fell apart from almost the beginning.

The team fired manager Mike Redmond in almost no time, then inexplicably sent  general manager Dan Jennings down to the dugout to take over as interim manager. The move predictably was a disaster, and the team finished the season 20 games under .500 and well out of the Wild Card chase.