How Excited Are You for Baseball?
I’ve never been much for this time of year, myself. I haven’t really cared about truck day, because that’s just a day there’s a lot of shit in a truck. And I haven’t really cared about pitchers and catchers, because I don’t need to know when players are being checked for disease. I don’t celebrate spring-training events like they’re holidays, but that even being said, I do understand the symbolism. And I’m aware of a shift within myself — spring training confirms that the season is really going to happen. When the offseason drags along, like it always does, it can be easy to forget there’s an onseason. It’s the stuff that’s coming that we all really care about, and now 2016 feels the most real it ever has.
It’s not that we ever stop looking ahead when we talk about baseball, and offseason analysis always folds in projections or expectations, but this is the time of year you start seeing pictures of teams all together. They stop being teams that exist only on paper, and they start being teams with talent, and health, and confidence, and whatever other qualities you choose to observe. You kind of stop thinking about roster modification, and you start thinking about roster optimization. About how a given team can be the best it can be, with the players in house. I don’t think hope ever dies, but this is when, even for the worst teams, it can awaken from its slumber.
The headline here might be kind of obnoxious. It reads a little like a teacher talking to children before a field trip. I’m sorry about that, but I’m terrible at headlines and I’m not getting any better. As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, this is another poll post. And this is another poll post where I’m going to be really interested in the results, because I think they could teach us a little about baseball fan psychology. We’re all now aware that games — meaningful games — are going to start taking place in an amount of time we can reasonably say to be weeks. Every team is going to be playing, and every team is going to be playing for something. The season is around the corner. So, how excited are you about it? What is the feeling that you feel in your heart?
When I first constructed this post in my head, it was going to ask only about a few teams. Mostly the bad ones. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it makes the most sense to ask about everyone, so we can examine the entire landscape. We know the Cubs are supposed to be a hell of a lot better than the Phillies. Cubs fans know that, and Phillies fans know that. Okay. How do Cubs fans feel? How do Phillies fans feel? How much of a difference does that make, if it even makes any difference at all?
I like these polls because there isn’t a wrong answer. You might not even need to think for more than half a second. You should already know how you feel, even before reading this post, so now that you’re here, kindly select the answer that most matches your position. Baseball is ahead. Daily baseball. Overwhelming baseball. Both major- and minor-league baseball. Baseball you have to plan around, and baseball you don’t have to plan around because it’ll be there again tomorrow. How excited do you feel now for 2016? Thank you in advance to everyone who participates and therefore allows me to run little projects like these. They are very obviously nothing without you. (<3)
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
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
What about just a general baseball fan, where’s my vote? I don’t follow a particular team but love MLB. This time of year (post Super Bowl until Opening Day in MLB) is the worst!
I’m so excited I’m even willing to listen to Joe Buck announce baseball games!
I just realized the writers here almost never use words like “shit” or “fuck”. Is there a policy against it?
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
A soft policy, but I was in a mood.
Maybe it’s like “Breaking Bad”: one F-bomb per season.
My take on that: I don’t know Dave well (I did sit through a game with him once. Hooray for USSM/LL meetups!) but having read his baseball writing for over 10 years now, he just doesn’t use profanity. As managing editor here, it’s appeared to set the tone. Jeff used to profane more at LL, but has toned down here. Personally, I appreciate that characteristic of the site.
Despite gutpunch after gutpunch this offseason, i’m still pumped to see what could be the best Blue Jays team ever this year.
To the Jays, or to you personally?
Very surprised by the Royals results so far.
As a Royals fan who went with pretty excited (but was close to kind of excited), I can tell you that what you’re probably seeing is an entire fanbase immediately post-coital – after decades of celibacy, for the first time in a long time not concerned with getting to any base.
I, for one, wouldn’t mind another few months of offseason.
I mean, even if you asked how excited I’d be about the upcoming Beloit Snappers season I’d say “very excited.” How could you not? There’s pitchers! Pitching! And don’t forget about hitters- they’ll hit, sometimes! And sometimes they’ll walk! And you’ll be outside, watching it all. The grass will be green, and you can get a beer for eight dollars.
I am very excited for all these baseball teams, in short.
This is the most excited I’ve been as a baseball fan. Partly because of how knowledgeable I am about analytics and saber, and mostly because my Jays are finally contending and I can’t wait for Game #1.
I am pretty well indifferent to the Braves’ MLB season at this point. Once they have a credible MLB team, I will be very excited, but that doesn’t look likely to happen before 2018.
I’m a Cubs fan, so of course I’m excited, but I just discovered Anderson Espinoza yesterday and drafted him… and I’m *very* excited about that. 2019 can’t come fast enough!
I wish the polls all didn’t sort by number of responses. If viewing results left all responses in the same order, you’d be able to quickly scan each response graph and get a general idea without having to actual read and check which line corresponds to what.
I was writing some javascript to “fix” this independent of your comment — you can see it later in the comments, or if you’re lazy, here’s a capture of it as of 2016-02-24 12:15:38 Pacific
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s19/sh/b2449708-bd58-45d9-8398-65f285d4c603/45d0a94935c8527f
Awesome, thanks!
I admit, this data interested me enough to do some of Jeff’s job, but I’ll hold off on findings until he publishes his, and I’ll share mine afterwards… but as of the same timestamp, here is a heatmap (on a scale from Giants Orange to weak Dodger Blue (KCR blue, ftw) of distributions + average rankings.
https://www.evernote.com/l/ABNC_INwihBEmZwQ_KyIZa-pFHO-y7E_Yz4
(Oh, it’s sorted by “average ranking,” column H, which is =C2/100*5+D2/100*4+E2/100*3+F2/100*2+G2/100*1 )
Mrrr. This one is better.
https://www.evernote.com/l/ABNOVrftna1MkJVeEEpuxWMBKY4b5OIHYqU
(16-15 indicates projected games improved over 15 actual. FA$mm is a rough handrolled amount spent on FAs this offseason for whole contracts, not AAV. There are a bunch more columns that I wondered if impacted expectations.)
It’s a weird feeling as a Brewers fan. I have not been this excited for a season since 2012. It’s probably all of the new faces and a fresh start. Most fans have known that the team wasn’t a realistic contender (even dispite 2014) since Prince Fielder left so it’s refreshing to see us actually do what needed to be done.
When they had that survey last year about the open GM jobs, I thought the Brewers were one of the better ones. Growing up in IL, but having family from WI, I know what MIL is like when you guys have good teams. I hope the Brewers and Cubs can be good at the same time for while. It would be a fun rivalry. I’ve liked what the new GM has done so far. Good luck with the season!
For the lazy, in chrome at least, fire up your javascript console and use this (assuming jQuery) to “view all” all results:
jQuery(‘.pds-view-results’).each( function(k,v) {console.log(jQuery(v)[0].click() )} );
If I get motivated, I might come back with a snippet that un-re-sorts the results so they’re in descending order.
(Just FYI, fg already includes jquery so no need to “assume” it — it’s there.)
Here’s the re-re-sorter along with the original. Also not that you don’t want these to be smart quotes…. thanks for that, fg. Also, you should run these separately — the first one won’t have finished by the time the second one starts if you paste them in one chunk.
How can White Sox fans be anything but “Very Excited”, considering the mess of their 2015 and how they had such a very good offseason in a winnable AL Central?
Have you met White Sox fans? They’re not the cheeriest bunch. They’d rather hate the Cubs than cheer their own team. There’s always a bit of anger brewing just below the surface.
So true.
Who, exactly, are the 8% of Cubs fans that are Not at All Excited about this year?
That’s a bitter bunch.
It’s the group that’s already expecting disappointment and more jokes by the national media. Those people miss how much fun baseball season can be regardless of the results at the end by wallowing in the despair of inevitable failure for six months.
Probably just trolls
I was a little unsure how to answer this question. First, I’m not actually that excited yet because it’s still a long way away. But I’m always very excited as baseball season approaches. I decided to answer the question based on how excited I’ll be in a few weeks. As a Braves fan, I’m not “very excited” about the Braves this year. I’d still say I’m either kind of excited or pretty excited about the Braves (which seem to me to mean about the same thing). However, overall as a baseball fan I’m very excited about baseball as a whole.
I’m not particularly excited to watch Baseball games, as my excitement level isn’t going to increase much. It’s already pretty high, given that so many of the moves that determine what happens in a baseball season involve the off-season. There’s so much random chance involved in an actual baseball season, but much of the controllable stuff happens during the off-season. I love baseball, but I also love me some hot stove.
28% of marlins fans ARE NOT excited to watch a healthy Jose and Stanton together?
* correction: 28.24.
* correction 2; not AT ALL.
Oof, poor Padres 🙁
As far as Braves fans who are excited about this season.. THERE ARE DOZENS OF US! DOZENS!
As a Giants’ fan, I’m very hopeful, not just because it’s an even year, but because our starting pitching might be very good. Hard to tell. Our starting lineup, with the possible exception of Pagan, is very strong.
As a Mariners’ fan, I was uneasy this time last year, when we were supposed to make the playoffs. The hype felt overblown. This year, Jerry Dipoto hasn’t done anything earthshaking (although getting Iwakuma back was very exciting), but it’s great to have someone smart as the M’s GM. Cano should be healthy all year, and perhaps Guti will be able to play for a whole season. I’m cautiously excited for the M’s – would love to see a Giants’ – M’s World Series, but that’s if most everything goes right.
Long time Braves fan. Not really excited for the Atlanta Braves Season at all. But, the Gwinnet Braves and the Mississippi Braves could be some compelling baseball to watch this year.
I mean, I’m very excited. VERY excited. But that’s because I’m excited for baseball in general. While the Phillies won’t be necessarily good, not generally nor by any liberal definition of the word “good”, there’s always good baseball to be consumed somewhere.
Hooray for baseball!
did you guys do this same poll last year? If so, it would be interesting to compare the teams that were mediocre last year that made splashy moves (such as the Dbacks) to see how much fan interest increased from the previous year. That might pay for some of Greinke’s contract, at least as long as the Dbacks stay at least peripherally in the NL West or wild card races. The opposite (see Padres) would be interesting to see the deltas too.
Phillies’ poll result dichotomy is very interesting:
Not at all excited 33.63%
Very excited 19.91%
Pretty excited 17.26%
Kind of excited 16.81%
having the top two results be polar opposites.
Should there have been an option for “negative excitement” or “downright dread”?