You have, no doubt, heard bits and pieces from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s hour-long meeting with BBWAA members the morning of the All-Star Game, in a conference room at the Ritz-Carlton in Cleveland.

He talked at length about the rumors of juiced baseballs and the contrast between MLB’s drawn-out free-agency process and the NBA’s thrill-a-minute extravaganza, to name a few topics. Those thoughts and quotes spawned many stories and columns.

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One thing in particular the commissioner said, though, piqued my interest. I mentioned it at the end of a recent column — about the need for better player-focused marketing — but wanted to follow up, too.

Here’s the quote from Manfred from that meeting: "Another piece that I would mention to you is the social media program that, I think, about 36 percent of our players have opted into. We make highlights available to them, easy to get to, so they can use those highlights, add their own commentary and post very quickly. They don't pay for anything. It's there, ready to use.”

That sounds like one hell of a useful program, right?

At the time of that meeting, 270 players in the league had been on-boarded into the Player Social program. By July 30, according to information supplied to Sporting News by MLB, that number had jumped to 315 players, 42 percent of the league — including 39 players from the All-Star Game events. The program has recently been expanded to the minor leagues, too; 78 not-yet-in-the-big-leagues players have joined.

The Player Social program provides standard content (pictures, video and/or highlights) to players after games, and also offers custom content at a player’s request. Here’s an example of custom content created for Marcus Stroman’s Twitter account, right after he was traded from the Blue Jays to the Mets.

And here’s an example of standard content available to players every night, used by Mike Trout for his Instagram feed.

Barbara McHugh, who was promoted to MLB’s senior vice president of marketing in April 2018, oversees the program. Her promotion was part of a marketing reorganization.

“One of our core goals and priorities that we identified early on is our efforts around player marketing,” McHugh said in a phone conversation with SN. “… When you think about social, that's where people are. Those are the platforms where people go to consume content, to consume news. That's really where they spend their time. So thinking of that, combined with the young fans that we’re trying to go after to complement our core fan base today and the opportunity to get fans to feel closer and a have a connection with their favorite players, we wanted to be a resource and create a collaborative partnership with our players.”

And MLB is very aware of the need to connect with younger fans, which is a big motivation for this new program. According to numbers supplied by MLB:

— 71 percent of followers on MLB’s Instagram account are 13-34

— 73 percent of followers on MLB’s Cut 4 Instagram account are 13-34

— 70 percent of followers on MLB’s YouTube account are 13-34

Here’s how it works. The MLB marketing team has what it calls “live content creators” at every game, and those creators take pictures and videos during the game, then upload everything to a database managed by Greenfly, a content and distribution software company (more on them in a moment).

That content is funneled into a player’s account, and they’re able to get those images or videos off the app and post from their phones/tablets, or they can post directly through the Greenfly app. McHugh said that, during the All-Star Game events, the Player Social program produced more than 2,000 pieces of content, resulting in nearly 100 posts from the 39 All-Stars who use the program.

McHugh said they’ve noticed a push around special events, whether it’s the All-Star Game or the London Series between the Yankees and Red Sox, or the games in Mexico. Here’s an All-Star post created for Francisco Lindor.

“We're trying to stay really, really true to their authenticity,” McHugh said. “What works for one player isn’t necessarily what’s going to work for another player, in terms of the content that we're providing.”

MLB is quick to point out, too, that players aren’t just using the program to promote their own brand. Much of the custom content they’re asked to create is team-focused, like this one created for Christian Yelich.

The Greenfly app is named after a familiar name to baseball fans. Shawn Green — the sweet-swinging left-handed slugger who hit 328 home runs in his career with the Blue Jays, Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Mets — is actually the founder of the company.

“I actually worked for the Mets when he was on the team. It was fun to be reunited,” McHugh said. “But, yeah, they’ve been a great partner. It’s been fun to give them feedback so they can continue to evolve the product. It really is a technology solution for us. We were using it as a way to share content with out clubs, prior to the player program. It’s just been an evolution of the technology and the product.”

MLB supplies the players with analytics about their posts, too, so they know which ones get the most engagement, drive the most follows, etc., even going so far as to provide monthly reports to the players and agents who are the most active. And, as McHugh pointed out, MLB uses that information to drive its social decisions, too, as far as what content it provides to players and what types of posts to use on the MLB accounts.

“I think it’s really helpful for them to see that when they are active and putting up engaging content that's really authentic to them,” McHugh said. “They are seeing their engagement rates go up, and also their follower growth go up and seeing the benefit to being active on social platforms to give fans that deeper and closer connection to them.”

According to MLB’s numbers, players in the program have increased their posts by 23 percent, increased their engagement by 50 percent and increased their follower growth by 38 percent.

The program started, on a small scale, with the 2018 MLB Japan All-Star Series last November. Rhys Hoskins and Whit Merrifield, in particular, were involved, not just with social media posts, but with videos created, like this one.

From there, McHugh and her marketing team met with agents and players at the Winter Meetings to walk them through the Player Social program. And the program’s grown from there, through word of mouth and other event-focused avenues.

“The initiative is part of our broader player marketing initiatives, and fortunately there was some traction and adoption to it,” McHugh said. “Like anything that has some legs to it, it’s picked up momentum as time has gone on.”