A Playoff Poll for the Uninvested
So your baseball team didn’t make the playoffs. Bummer! Neither did mine. Of you, I ask a simple question: who’s going to be your playoff bandwagon? I suppose maybe you don’t have one, but if you’re hanging out on FanGraphs after the elimination of your favorite team, you’re probably a pretty big baseball fan, so you’re probably going to pay some attention to the tournament. You have to pick somebody to like more than the others.
Note that there’s nothing I can do about fan votes coming from people whose teams are actually still alive. This poll isn’t for you. I don’t care that Nationals fans are rooting for the Nationals. Nobody gains anything if you’re a Nationals fan who votes for the Nationals here even though this is for fans of the Padres and the Phillies and the White Sox and the others. Just, please, stay out of this, if your No. 1 team isn’t among the 20 currently dead. Don’t be a dick for no reason. If you have to be a dick, at least be a dick for a reason. There is no reason, here, for dicking.
So let’s find out who’s being bandwagoned, by the fans who’re otherwise emotionally uninvested!
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.
Looks like the AL Wild Card game will be a heartbreaker for us ‘neutrals’ (to borrow the term from soccer)
Also borrowed the term from the english language
Very predictable results: A’s fans being dicks.
Red Sox fan here, pulling for a bunch of former Sox as well as Billy Beane. It is hardly surprising that a lot of the neutral fans on this site would be rooting for one of the most sabermetrically inclined franchises out there.
Or fans of advanced statistics who hail Billy Beane as the second coming
*ahem* Billy Beane is the first coming.
Royals. Rauuuuuuuuuul.
Seems like everyone loves to hate my Dodgers. Do baseball fans really not want to see Kershaw in the WS?
The only reason I’d want to see the Dodgers in the finals is if Joe Buck remains true to his word and “steps aside” to let Vin Scully do the play-by-play. (And I don’t mean just one “guest inning” or something. The whole damn series, or at least all the Dodger home games since Scully doesn’t travel anymore). Kershaw in the series would be fun, but Scully’s voice on the broadcast would be transcendent.
Whoa, I didn’t realize this was in play!
Ok, I take it back, the Dodgers need to make the Series.
If this is true, Dodgers go from last to first in my rooting interest
There seems to be a pretty strong negative correlation between both payroll and recent success. I doubt the richest team in baseball is ever going to be the most popular among non-fans. Underdogs make for better stories.
Voted for Royals, but was torn between them and the Pirates. I am equally uninterested in any other team winning beyond those two.
Yeah, it’s either of those two, with Baltimore as a fallback on the AL side (since I think there’s a good chance the Royals don’t play past tonight). The other teams either have too much recent playoff exposure or are just unlikable for various reasons (their payroll, their fans, their players).
I don’t feel I know enough about any team’s fans to make a rooting decision based on that. What are you thinking of? I only think of the whole “best fans in baseball” crap about Cardinals fans, but even that I see as a dumb media thing that may have nothing to do with the actual fans.
Well, this year Boston and New York aren’t in it so the fans are less than a factor. Though around here at least the Giants fans can be pretty insufferable, though nowhere near as pervasive or bandwagony. But yes, I was thinking of the Cardinals and the best fans in baseball. Did you know they have the best fans in baseball? And by the way, they have the best fans in baseball. Perhaps you can recognize them by the dislocated shoulders from all the self-back-patting or the hoarse voices from all the reminding of that fact, but at least they’re the best fans in baseball.
This is actually pretty close to both the recent WSJ and NYT articles on the question. Cardinals, Giants, Dodgers have too much success and money to be popular choices. Even the Tigers suffer from recent division titles.
Go Expos!
I’d like to see the Nationals in the World Series (though I don’t care if they win or not) just so that the Mariners will be the last remaining team without a World Series appearance. (As a fan since ’77 I am convinced this will remain true upon my death when the expansion teams in Las Vegas and Monterrey Mexico already have WS appearances.)
You’re an M’s fan and you WANT that? Why for goodness sakes?
Martyr complex. Masochism. http://www.fangraphs.com/not/the-day-after/
Because Mariners.
Because we’ve been on that trajectory for over thirty years and I’d just like to get there finally. Because there’s only one other team that can achieve that distinction (until expansion, at least) and they’re in a much better place to lose it. (And somewhere a little voice from 1994 is shouting “Allons-y Expos”)
Because the most apt logo for any fan site in the SBNation constellation is the one for LookoutLanding.
Because Mariners.
So I don’t have a MLB team since I am from Nashville. I voted for the A’s because Sonny Gray is an incredible role model for all young children to look up to. And that breaking ball is pretty amazing too. And he can’t even grow facial hair which makes his ability to pitch so well even more impressive. IMO.
As a fellow Nashvillian (Nash villain?) without a rooting interest remaining, I voted Giants. However, I remember when they showed Sonny on the jumbotron at a Preds game last year, he got a nice ovation from the crowd.
(I thought I was the only Jays fan in the middle Tennessee area, but I saw a guy with a Jays shirt on two weekend ago, and another friend spotted a Bautista shirt in Franklin recently. So there are at least three of us, or we both saw the same dude and he never changes shirts.)
Shea Weber can often be spotted at Vandy baseball games in a Jays hat. That makes four.
Wow, one with some cache, no less. (Lord knows I have none.)
Figured you’d say you were going A’s since the Nashville Sounds will be their AAA team starting next year.
I voted for the team in the state where I am living, since my team is in a different state. There’s no rooting interest except that a local celebration would be nice.
I’m a Dodgers fan, so I didn’t vote, but if the Dodgers were out, I’d definitely root for the Pirates.
Though the Nationals are also a possibility because they’ve never even been to the world series.
I ended up voting for the Orioles, since my college roommate lives in Baltimore now, but I had a much harder time choosing that I expected. As a Braves fan the only teams I really DON’T want to win are the Dodgers or Cardinals, and even the Dodgers wouldn’t be so bad. Heck, I’d even be happy for the Nationals if they pull it off…good way to ignite the rivalry a bit more. SF would be nice because Tim Hudson would get a ring, Oakland because Beane would finally be validated, Detroit because their owner is what every fanbase wishes their owner was, and Pittsburgh or KC would be great because their fans have suffered long enough. So pretty much no matter what happens, this will be a fun postseason to watch.
(Unless the Cardinals win. Man I dislike the Cardinals.)
(Wainwright’s cool though)
If the NLCS ends up somehow being between the Giants and Cardinals, I’m giving up on baseball and becoming a NFL fan. No LA team, I’m emotionally safe.
Well, the only good thing about that is that no matter which one won, I’d be cheering against it in the World Series. Though I’d be cheering for the AL team regardless, with the possible exception if it was Pirates-Tigers. Though every time I feel sorry for Pirates fans I remember they also have the Steelers and the Penguins, and the sympathy evaporates.
Pirates, but basically anyone but the Nationals. Yeah, even the goddamn Giants would be better, despite the fact that a third title would officially elevate them to dynasty status.
I have to give the Nationals credit; I never knew it was possible to hate a team this much.
Speaking as a Nationals fan, it’s just incredibly weird that there are people who hate my team. I’m in shock. In the space of three years we’ve gone from a punchline on late-night broadcast television to someone actually hating us.
Is it because the team is good? The way that we used to hate the Braves and Phillies? Or is it something else? We also hated the Phillies because their fans are so vicious and rude, and stuck-up players like McCann and Hamels. I mean, Werth is an asshole, but he’s such a lovable asshole.
Anon21 is not the only Braves fan to hate the Nats. There was a map of the most hated teams in each state earlier this year and the Nats had, as I recall, three states in the South, including Georgia.
I’m okay with Braves fans hating the Nats (the feeling is kinda mutual after they started plunking the Nats left and right last year and since they’re fans come to DC in droves and do the chop), but I don’t understand other fans feeling the same way.
I didn’t vote in the poll and must say this is one poll I enjoy not voting in.
A lot of it is misplaced hatred toward Bryce Harper & Stephen Strasburg for being famous before they’d “proven” anything (in the minds of those who hate them).
And the whole “Nattitude” thing certainly doesn’t help any….
I never understood why “Natitude” gets peoples goad so much. It’s just a (lousy) play on words, ferchrissakes.
Nats fans are generally either degenerate yokels (the same people who are Redskins fans, and pretty much act like stereotypical Phillies fans from New Jersey) or people who don’t really care that much about baseball. This comes from the transient nature of DC and also that the team has only been around since 2005. Most actual die-hard fans of teams do not just change allegiances because they move (or even if team moves closer). As a longtime DC resident, in my super scientific research of considering my friends that “care” about baseball, the ones that truly care are all from other areas and all still care about those teams (or still root for the Orioles). I’ve also been to the majority of MLB stadiums and Nats fans are the least interested in the game in general. Again, mostly people who just want to be there.
Also, as a Braves fan, it doesn’t help that people who root for Washington sports teams are so often “offended” by disrespect of Native Americans.
Wow. Just wow.
Many, many of us Nats fans have been true fans of the team since it arrived in 2005. Some are even holdover fans of the Expos. Many more are people who were deprived of baseball for decades due to comically evil owners named Short and Angelos. I have been attending games regularly in DC since 2005, even braving that rat-infested stadium called RFK. The Nats provided me with some of the best father-son memories in my and my son’s life, even when they were under the guidance of MLB (spit) and an incompetent GM (Bowden (double spit)). Your statement that Nats fans “pretty much act like sterotypical Phillies fans” is wildly off-the-mark: I’ve been to many, many ballparks across the country and the Nats fans are exceptionally well-behaved as a group.
The Nats are a very well-run organization, finally. Their GM is top-notch. We have a “face of the franchise” player in Ryan Zimmerman who has been with them since almost day one, who has never done ANYTHING to warrant disrespect.
Yes, many people in DC didn’t grow up here, and so many still have a warm place in their heart for some other team. But many who I know have found room to root for two teams with passion. And, over time, like me they have become Nats fans, first and foremost.
“Degenerate yokels?” You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I’m a Nats fan second and a baseball fan first. I’ve been a huge fan of baseball all my life, and only became a Nats fan after I moved to the area nearly a decade ago. I don’t think that makes me a bad fan — after all, if I was going to attend 75+ games a year, I might as well be a fan of the team I’m watching! Sorry if this offends you.
Plate discipline, natswinitall. This is simply trolling by a Braves fan who is still burned by yet another epic collapse by his team. Nothing to see here, we can move along.
Are you one of those fans still in denial that once the Redskins change their name the Braves are next? Or is the denial more about your team’s 62-76 record the last 138 games of the 2014 season? That the stadium chop track produces 90% of Turner Field’s crowd noise? Or is it something else?
good advice, JCC from DC. Thanks for reminding me to keep my blood pressure down!
You don’t really address my points for the most part. First, I won’t disagree that the Nats are a class organization. They deserve better fans. I really like Zimmerman, and aside from Harper (who I think is a lot easier to hate because of constant remarks about his hustle, etc. from idiot fans) there’s no one I really dislike at all, and I don’t dislike Harper as much as most fans of rival teams do. My biggest complaint would be that the stadium experience is over-the-top cheesy, but again they are catering to dip-shit fans for the most part.
And you are right. Most of the fans are well behaved. They don’t know what the score is. Or what place the Nats are in (until now). But they are generally well behaved. The ones that aren’t are the degenerate yokels, mostly from Southern Maryland and the Virginia exurbs.
I don’t care who you root for. I don’t get to decide who’s a good fan. My friends who root for the Nats generally don’t care that much about baseball. And I really don’t care that much about the Braves/chop, but Washington sports fans don’t have a leg to stand on but don’t realize it.
Agreed, I can find teams I LOATHE much easier than I can find teams to get hyped up about. Usually when the postseason rolls around I root hard against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Braves. (And the BoSox are a recent add to that list, they seemed pretty harmless back when they were lovable losers and not the Yankees Jr.)
But this season? All three, watching the playoffs from home! Christmas came early this year!
Anon21, you spent the entire offseason (and well into the summer) complaining about any FG article that suggested that the Nationals were a good team, perhaps even better than the Braves. Any article that tangentially praised the Nationals was somehow viewed not as an impartial analysis or assessment but as a deep disrespect of the Braves players and organization. It got so comical that even the Fangraphs writers noticed it (as a general phenomenon; you were merely first among equals).
Don’t blame the Nationals for the fact that the impartial assessments were right about the Nationals and you were wrong. It’s ungracious.
Goodness, they were everywhere. ESPN too. I remember one guy who some time in May said he was more worried about the Phillies and Marlins than he was the Nationals. I don’t know where they find these people.
Have you seen “Deliverance”? Those boys got the internet now.
DODGERS! I want Puig bat flips! And who doesn’t like Donny Baseball?
I’m feeling like you guys aren’t appreciating how funny it would be if the Giants won this year.
I have to say, I like the playoffs a lot this year considering my team died some time ago.
Pittsburgh is a lot of fun to watch. McCutchen might be the NL MVP, and they shift a lot which I enjoy.
The Royals are the obvious underdog pick.
But then again, it’s not often you see Baltimore win the AL East.
The Los Angeles Mike Trout’s of Anaheim, need I say more?
Clayton Kershaw is kind of good if you are into good starting pitching.
But I still voted for Billy Beane to finally win one.
Giants & Cardinals are least appealing. I’m guessing that’s because they’ve been in all the World Series’s in the past 4 years and people want to see someone different succeed?
From a Rays fan: Athletics have more former Rays. Royals have Shield. The tension is huge!
But what really is important is the folks announcing the game. That is why the Giants is the best pick.
I voted for the Angels because they have Mike Trout, greatest player in baseball, and also I don’t know any Angels fans at all and live on the East Coast so there’s no one to be obnoxious (to me) about them winning.