Who Should Mets Fans Be Rooting for in the 2019 Playoffs?

While we all would have loved to have had the easy decision of rooting for the New York Mets in the 2019 postseason, they have unfortunately failed to make it for the third consecutive year.

With that being the case, Washington Nationals and Milwaukee Brewers have both made the postseason as Wild Card teams while the Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, and Los Angeles Dodgers fill out the rest of the National League bracket.

Meanwhile, in the American league, our choices will be the Oakland Athletics, Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins, and Houston Astros.

As of today, the Nationals and Brewers will face off in the NL Wild Card game and the winner will take on the Dodgers in the NLDS. In the AL, the Rays and A’s will face off and the winner will advance to face off against the Astros, who will have home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

So, this begs the question, who should Mets fans be rooting for in the postseason?

The obvious answers would be the Rays, A’s, and Brewers. Of those three, the A’s would definitely be my first choice given that they have been an insanely fun team this season with players like Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, and Marcus Semien leading the way.

The issue with each of those three teams is that they are all set to face off in a Wild Card game. One of the first two must be eliminated before Thursday while the other has to face off against the Nationals. For whichever of these teams advances to the divisional series, they will be forced to deal with the Astros or Dodgers.

In the Brewers case, they’ll have to find a way to make a playoff push without Christian Yelich which will be no easy feat.

While anything is possible, those three teams, whether we hope they do or not, likely won’t go very far in this year’s playoffs.

The one Wild Card team that has a realistic chance of going far would probably be the Nationals, which most Mets fans would hate to see win.

Despite their constant inability to go anywhere in the postseason, they actually have a pitching staff that could counter that of the Dodgers with Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Patrick Corbin leading the way against Hyun-Jin Ryu, Clayton Kershaw, and Walker Buehler.

With that being the case, the next choice or even one ahead of those three, is the Twins. The issue with them, though, is their lack of pitching outside of Jose Berrios.

In their series with the Yankees, that might be fine given the Yankees don’t exactly have anyone that would be considered an ace on most pitching staffs. But, if they were to get past them, they would run straight into Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander, and Zack Greinke which would hit them like a brick wall.

However, their chances of even getting past the Yankees are probably slim given the Yankees ability to shorten the game with their bullpen with arms like Chad Green, Adam Ottavino, Tommy Kahnle, Zack Britton, and Aroldis Chapman.

The Cardinals, meanwhile, probably represent the NL’s weakest (potential) division winner, as they are fighting this weekend to maintain that lead over the Brewers and do not really have much in terms of true star talent on their roster. They have mostly been successful this year by just not having many true weaknesses, with their bullpen providing a major boost.

It would really be hard to root for them in almost any scenario given that the 2006 NLCS is still fresh in everyone’s mind, even if only two of the players from that team remain on the roster (Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina).

So, with that being said, if our options were to come down to the Dodgers/Nationals, Braves, Yankees, and Astros, who do you pick from there?

Personally, I’d have to go with the Astros in the AL and Braves in the NL. Yes, I know I am picking a division-rival.

But, the Braves have developed a pretty likable team this year with guys like Freddie Freeman, Ronald Acuna Jr., and Ozzie Albies adding a lot of excitement to the game. Also, I’m a huge fan of Josh Donaldson so that also factors into my decision making. There’s a good chance Adeiny Hechavarria isn’t on their postseason roster either, which would definitely appease many who were upset about what he said after the team won the division a week ago.

Given that I would not choose the Yankees under most circumstances, the Astros would be my ALCS pick. However, if the Twins were to make it, they would remain my preferred AL team.

Now, for some potential World Series matchups!

In the most likely scenario, it would be Astros vs. Dodgers which the easy pick would probably be the Astros given that in some sense the Dodgers helped destroy the Mets season and they have some history together between the 1987 and 2015 playoffs, with the latter being in the Mets favor.

If it’s Yankees vs. Dodgers or Yankees vs. Nationals, pick your poison. I would not put the Braves in that same category, though.

With regards to which ones would probably be most enjoyable to watch, I’d say either Braves vs. Twins or Braves vs. Astros. Both of those matchups would feature premiere lineups with some of the most talented players in the game.

Who will you be rooting for this postseason?

Below is a list of our MMO predictions for American League Champion, National League Champion, and World Series Champion.