Why you should root for the Mets

Two years ago, the playoffs were gross. When it became clear that the NLCS would feature the Dodgers and the Cardinals, I swore a blood oath:

Here is my promise to the baseball gods: If LA plays St Louis in the playoffs, I will call it "rooting for the Cardinals"

— groug (@moonwalkmcfly) September 3, 2013

Well, first I retched a little, but then I swore a blood oath.  And I lived up to it!

But I don't want that for this year. I want to root for a likable team that does good things. I want to find a good group that I can support in a bargain that is 100% Faust-free. I don't want to just root against the Dodgers; I want to legitimately root for someone. I want to . . . well . . .

So let's do that!

Yoenis Cespedes

Look at this dude. LOOK AT THIS DUDE.

Stick with me on this: what if that Jon Lester trade wasn't a great idea for the A's?

Curtis Granderson

Curtis Granderson is just a super, super good person. He gave $5 million to build a baseball complex at the University of Illinois in Chicago that 10,000 inner city Chicago kids use per year. When he signed endorsement deals, he asked for the companies he endorsed to provide money or baseball equipment for his foundation for kids to play baseball instead of receiving it himself. He was voted one of the friendliest players in the majors by his peers. These facts and many others can be found in his Wikipedia page!

Curtis Granderson also runs the greatest Instagram account of all time, @wefollowlucasduda. He just follows Lucas Duda around the clubhouse and takes videos of him, and it's incredible. Lucas Duda is way less into it than Curtis Granderson or me, which is what makes it so good. You should watch all the videos, and you should like Curtis Granderson, and you should root for the Mets.

Juan Uribe

He's not a Dodger anymore, people. You can love him again. It is your duty to love him again.

Wilmer Flores

Wilmer Flores became an American hero when cameras caught him crying on the field after he seemed to have been traded to the Brewers for Carlos Gomez. And since the trade deadline, he's hit a walk-off homer against the Nationals, massively improved his wRC+ (86 before the deadline, 119 since), and has received multiple well-deserved standing ovations from Mets fans. One of the most fun parts of baseball is seeing people succeed who shouldn't; it's watching the guys who were forgotten or disregarded rise up and prove themselves. Wilmer Flores is one of those guys, and we should all root for him.

Bartolo Colon

Frankly, I don't know what else you need in a person.

Matt Harvey

Okay, so Matt Harvey hasn't been getting a ton of great press lately. But you know what? Two years ago, the man delighted us all by doing this:

Wait, that kid at the end who said not to pitch too many innings or go over 100 pitches in a start. Is . . . is that Scott Boras?

The rest of the rotation is also excellent, and from an on-field perspective, that group is the most fun part of watching the team. I don't have a lot more words about them. They're really good! Please enjoy watching them pitch.

David Wright

David Wright deserves to have some good things happen to him other than being very handsome and getting extremely well paid to play professional baseball while being beloved in New York City and well liked throughout the rest of the country. But besides all that . . .

Okay, I know, I know, you don't feel bad for superstar baseball players. And you shouldn't. But there has been the one tragic flaw in Wright's brilliant career: he's been on the Mets the whole time. Here's what they've done since he arrived in 2004: bad year, okay, playoff loss, epic choke, doubly epic choke, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, okay, 2015! David Wright deserves some playoff happiness. The Mets deserve some playoff happiness.

A few years ago, I was watching an episode of Jeopardy, and one of the contestants was a Mets fan named Sarah. At the end of the talking-to-Trebek part, Trebek said "The Mets'll be good this year" and with absolutely no hesitation, Sarah replied, "No they won't." I only remember that because of a tweet I sent when it happened:

"The Mets'll be good this year." "No they won't" #jeopardy #hahahahaha #totallyrootingforsarah

— groug (@moonwalkmcfly) February 14, 2012

So, Mets. Win. Win for Curtis Granderson and Wilmer Flores, win for Juan Uribe and Bartolo Colon. Win for David Wright. Win for Sarah. Win for me. Win for America. We're counting on you, guys. And when has counting on the Mets ever gone wrong?