I alluded to these recently, but I think we need to spell them out. There are twelve teams in the Major League Baseball postseason. One of them will win the World Series at the end of it. The others won’t. Every team wants to win the World Series, but every team has a different level of desire on that front. No two teams are the same (some are really close, though, so please keep that in mind I mean I separated them but in some cases, guys, it was hard I mean you try to separate between these teams it is tough).
Are you ready?
Are you sure?
Ok, the twelve teams, from happiest to be here to most desperately in want of a title:
12. Seattle
The Mariners, God bless them, they’re having a riot. The more they win, the more riotous they’ll become. But their state is not one of feeling the need to capitalize on this opportunity. Theirs is one of being relieved as heck that they finally made the field.
11. Philadelphia
The Phillies have one of the most intensely desperate fanbases in sports, and that fanbase assigns all of its desperation to the Eagles. This is odd, because the Eagles won the Super Bowl only a few years ago, but this is where we’re at. Philadelphians will forever equate their worth with the prestige of their city’s NFL franchise. The Phillies (or Sixers, or maybe the Flyers) could theoretically change that, but it would take a while, and in the meantime, the people are more concerned about locking up the NFC East. The playoff-less streak is over. For right now, that’s enough.
10. Tampa Bay
The Rays have never won the World Series, which has to burn given they’re very clearly the best team in the state of Florida and the Marlins somehow stole two. However, they’re beaten up enough this year that there’s just no reasonable expectation there to get a title. For the few Rays fans who exist, eyes are mostly on 2023.
9. San Diego
In a similar phenomenon to Rays fans, and with an echo of the Mariners thrown in, the Padres faithful are relieved their team didn’t choke in the regular season this time, and this year has also gone badly enough that when it’s over, they’ll feel more weary than upset. The future still looks bright, so long as you take enough time to sit with it, but they’re going to take some time to get there, and they need to flush this season before they can really believe it.
8. Atlanta
This is kind of where the seesaw swings. Not that anyone doesn’t want it, but if you want it less than the defending champs, you’re in a spot of being happy (or, more accurately for three of the four, relieved) to still be playing baseball. Atlantans won’t be upset when the season ends, but they do have a wrinkle where they really don’t want to lose to the Mets. Playing the Mets would vault them to sixth on this list.
7. Toronto
A thing about the Blue Jays is that they speak for a nation, and even if that nation’s on the small side population-wise (big side land-wise—lotta land up there, Canadians have so much space holy cow it’s a lot), this is unique. The Dodgers don’t speak for California. The Yankees don’t speak for New York. The Phillies don’t speak for Philadelphia (kind of). For Canadians, the Blue Jays and Raptors are their teams who can win at an American sport, and with Toronto a gigantic city, the drought ending would result in one hell of a celebration. If they lose? No worries. But if they win, it’s going to be electric, so rather than the usual gap which defines how much a team wants it—the gap between how heartbreaking it would be to lose and how exciting it would be to win, often swinging between a strong negative and a strong positive—Toronto’s goes from the smallest of negatives to one of the biggest positives on this list. For a lot of these fanbases, it’s about relief. For the Blue Jays, it’s a chase of exultation.
6. Houston
Astros fans know people don’t count their title. They don’t count it either, deep down. They want to, but they’ve been convinced, and to some extent, a title is in the eye of the beholder. That said, they aren’t big enough villains to really want to rub it in folks’ faces. Some are, but they’re so lesser than the rest of us on the moral front that most of us won’t have a problem tuning them out. We’ll feel the same disgust we already feel.
5. St. Louis
A great thing about Cardinals fans is that they always believe they can win the World Series and they’re always mad when they don’t. There’s a lot of irrationality in the Cardinals universe, but one of its most redeeming pieces is this tendency to be completely destroyed by losses and lifted to other planes by wins. The Cardinals are a world unto themselves, and that world will either be the most joyous or the most despondent of all of them depending on these next four weeks.
4. Los Angeles
Dodgers fans know some people don’t count their title. They don’t count it either, deep down. They want to, but it eats at them that there’s any room for quarreling with it. They also know these good times can’t last. They know the front office will, sooner or later, slip up, and that there are a whole lot of contracts they might have to get out of when that happens. They want a real one. They want a big one.
3. Cleveland
You’d think Guardians fans would be closer to the Happy to Be Here end, but they’ve sung this dance too many times. They know you only get so many opportunities, and with the longest drought in the field, the fear of more Clevelanders dying without seeing a World Series parade is very real. The stakes are high. But, as they say, everything’s bigger in New York.
2. New York (NL)
Mets fans want this badly. Not only are they getting bullied by Yankees fans, but now Atlanta’s also pouring it on. Mets fans are taking heat from both ends of the East Coast, and they know Red Sox fans are laughing at them too, and they know Eagles fans are vaguely aware there’s a baseball team in Queens, and all of this is quite bothersome. The Mets hurt. They ache. And they’re always one moment away from a franchise-wide meltdown, so the urgency is high.
1. New York (AL)
And yet somehow, Yankees fans want it more. Because while Mets fans want to win, they’re expected to lose. Tell a Mets fan the Mets lost and there’s no surprise factor. When the Yankees lose? That’s not supposed to happen. Well, guys, it’s been happening all the time for two decades now. Yankees fans need this, and to make things worse: If the franchise doesn’t get it, they’re liable to very unwisely clean house.
Should make the LCS week pretty fun when it comes (I wrote that sentence before the Padres bombarded Max Scherzer, the Mets are dead it’s over the Mets are toast).
Duck the Fodgers.