How Excited Are You for Baseball?

For fans of all 30 28 26 teams, Thursday, at last, is opening day. As I write this, regular-season baseball is already underway. Literally the first real pitch of the entire season was hit for a home run. It was also a 96 mile-per-hour fastball from a pitcher few people across the country have heard of. I don’t know if you could come up with a more pithy representation of baseball in the modern era. Everything is about power, strikeouts, walks, and apparently batters getting hit by a pitch. This is how it’s been, and this is how it will be.

There’s nothing that quite compares to the feeling of opening day. I know I’m not alone when I say that, every single year, on this particular morning, I wake up with a start. Most mornings begin with a snooze or three or four, but on the morning of opening day, I arise with this internal electricity. It’s not that the games on opening day are that important. It’s that just having games is important. We’ve all spent five or six months feeling like our preferred routine was disrupted, and now we can all get back to normal. We can watch and think happily about baseball.

The start of the year is welcome for just about everyone. That much should be self-evident — as fans, we just want to watch our teams compete, and especially early on, optimism can dig its hooks in without letting go. So the question in the headline might come off as ridiculous. Who among us isn’t excited for baseball, now that it’s finally back? But this is a polling project I’ve run before, two years ago. I wish I would’ve done it in 2017. The average fan of every team is happier now than they were a few months ago. But, who’s most excited? Who’s least excited, relatively speaking? As you should all understand by now, I love collecting data covering the whole MLB landscape, and this is just another opportunity.

There’s no reason for you to think too hard. The polls ought to be very easy to answer, because the answer is already there in your gut. Let’s say you’re a fan of the Yankees. How excited are you about 2018? Let’s say, instead, you’re a fan of the Marlins. How excited are you about 2018? Are White Sox fans more or less excited than Phillies fans? Than Padres fans? Than Rangers fans? Provided you all vote honestly, in sufficient numbers, we can get answers. We can get them very easily! And your responses should be revealing.

The best polling projects, I think, are the ones with no right or wrong answer. In the poll for your favorite team below, select whichever response you feel most strongly about. And then early next week, we can have fun with the numbers, comparing contenders to contenders, and basements to basements. And contenders to basements, and so on and so forth. Baseball is back, and it’s going to be here every day. Every day at the major-league level, and every day at the minor-league level. Look, there’s something stirring within each one of us. Please respond below, if you have a moment, and thank you all in advance for your participation. I’ll never stop publishing polling projects. (I’ll never stop publishing polling projects.)

To proceed directly to a specific team excitement poll, click on the team’s name below.

Angels, Astros, Athletics, Blue Jays, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Giants, Indians, Mariners, Marlins, Mets, Nationals, Orioles, Padres, Phillies, Pirates, Rangers, Rays, Red Sox, Reds, Rockies, Royals, Tigers, Twins, White Sox, Yankees

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Angels

Astros

Athletics

Blue Jays

Braves

Brewers

Cardinals

Cubs

Diamondbacks

Dodgers

Giants

Indians

Mariners

Marlins

Mets

Nationals

Orioles

Padres

Phillies

Pirates

Rangers

Rays

Red Sox

Reds

Rockies

Royals

Tigers

Twins

White Sox

Yankees