Who is Actually Having the Most Fun in Baseball Right Now?

It’s a very objective outlook to glance at the standings and think, “Well, naturally this team has more wins.

They’re obviously having more fun throughout the season and their fan base has loved every moment of following along,” or vice versa- if they’ve lost more games, wouldn’t they be having considerably less “fun” than the winning teams?

But that’s not the way that sports and human emotions work. There is a considerable amount of energy surrounding teams and players that tends to trend upward. There are beautiful surprises even in the midst of losing, just as there remains misery in the midst of success due to our expectations. It’s ultimately just a reality show of character arcs that we’ve signed up for.

There are elements to the fun-having- there’s the ballpark experience and the announcer on the call, the clubhouse morale and the people we cheer for, there’s the preseason expectations, there’s even the aesthetic of the style of play.

For example, the Dodgers and Phillies were both perennial teams that were seen in the World Series or bust category. They both have two of the top five best records in baseball. If you ask either one of the members of their fan bases how they’ve felt this year, they’d probably respond with a bit of vitriol. The Dodgers have had their rotation decimated, Shohei Ohtani won’t pitch until later in the year, and they’re irked that the rest of the NL West, aside from the Rockies, is overperforming.

The Phillies have been chasing the Mets all year until now, and will tell you they’re upset about Aaron Nola’s massive ERA spike before hitting him with the phantom IL spot. That doesn’t sound like fun by comparison to the standings?

So, factoring in the fan bases, the players they root for, and the overall vibes of the season thus far, let’s evaluate which teams are actually enjoying baseball and the romantic game that it should be, right now.

Honorable Mention (Because of a Black Cloud): Chicago Cubs Fans

The Cubs undeniably have an entertaining game seemingly every single time they’re on your television. Part of that is because the shaky bullpen makes each game come down to the wire, but they have one of the most electrifying offenses from end-to-end where they never feel out of it, and the electric personalities of blue-star-haired Pete Crow Armstrong, Lieutenant Dansby Swanson, and Seiya Suzuki all buying-in to the magic of Wrigley. You saw it Sunday when they came back to score 11 runs to win it after trailing in the 8th against the Reds, and the team that leads in homers, runs, hits, and is top-5 in steals has made this franchise that fans have been dying to get attached to since the 2016 core has gone its separate ways is now filled with cult heroes that make them a fan-favorite roster that is talking themselves into October magic.

The problem? The Kyle Tucker situation. They went all-in to trade for one of the best pure-hitters in major league baseball in his contract season, and every game that he keeps up this MVP candidate pace, the price tag goes up until the Ricketts family extends him.

Detroit Tigers Fans

PHOTO: Junfu Han/USA TODAY NETWORK/Imagn Images

The Tigers fans got the benefit of what many thought was a miraculous run last year in which they went from selling their assets to rebuild at the deadline to making the postseason when their odds were just .2% on August 11th,

then winning a playoff series and crowning Tarik Skubal as Cy Young. All they’ve done is show it wasn’t a fluke! With Jason Benetti and Andy Dirks broadcasting and truly capturing how fun this story has been, Tigers fans get to watch the best pitcher in baseball in Skubal, the best record in the AL with a top-to-bottom pitching rotation that previously had to use “pitching chaos” just to get through games, and young bats that are only maturing at the plate like Riley Greene and Dillon Dingler. Javier Baez even went from most-memed player in the league to returning to superstar form in the outfield! The Motor City Kitties are having a great time.

St. Louis Cardinals Fans

Preseason, the St. Louis Cardinals and the heralded best fans in baseball were staring at a team with the second-lowest win total projection in the NL to start the year after a last-place finish and no more MVP Paul Goldschmidt. There were rumblings they wanted to trade away Nolan Arenado (who they TRIED to trade to Houston) and Sonny Gray. They both have no-trade clauses and chose to stay, and all it’s led to is them being veterans on a surprise NL Wild Card contender, just three games back of the Cubs. Brendan Donovan has an argument as the best second baseman in baseball this season, top-10 in average all year.

Now the team that felt like it was aging and going towards a sell-off looks like it’s set up with a great young core going forward in the gazelle on the basepaths Victor Scott II, the dynamic shortstop of Masyn Winn, and Yadier Molina WHO CAN SLUG successor in Ivan Herrera! All that and you get a Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed confirmed movie about the Molina brothers? The Red Birds are back!

San Francisco Giants Fans

Preseason, we all had the same sentiment about the San Francisco Giants: some sort of combination of “Oh, good for new president Buster Posey! The team that had missed out on several free agents in the past got Willy Adames! Maybe they’ll be fun in a few years. That division is pretty tough.”

The Giants are having the time of their lives, and Willy Adames as the “piece” has merely been the good vibes guy in the locker room with his struggles at the plate. It’s been Wilmer Flores who’s top-5 in RBI. It’s 7-0 Robbie Ray stepping up to make him and the WORKHORSE Logan Webb arguably the best 1-2 punch in the majors with the best bullpen ERA in baseball afterwards. They’re just a collection of great energy guys that feel like they have an identity in an NL West that has been an arms race between the Giants, the Padres, and the Diamondbacks, that are in a “who can take best aim at the Dodgers” match. It remains to be seen, the Giants not only have been consistently in the thick of it all year, they have the edge with the HOO LEE GANS, the die-hard 51 Giants fans in flaming hair wigs going crazy for Jung Hoo Lee AKA Grandson of the Wind.

Yeah, the Giants are having a blast.

New York Yankees Fans

The team that lost Juan Soto after a crippling World Series defeat seems to still be pretty good!

Yankee fans are always going to live-and-die by each 162-game result on a day-to-day basis, but the reality is that because they had to make up for the loss of Soto in the aggregate with guys like Max Fried, a top-5 pitcher in the AL this year, and in Paul Goldschmidt, a rejuvenated corpse they took a chance on, and then just allowing facial hair to players like Trent Grisham and Ben Rice that suddenly turn into the old school Bronx Bombers, you tend to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder. That along with Aaron Judge having maybe one of the best seasons of his career has changed their outlook entirely to where you can now just pocket “I am watching maybe the best offensive player of my lifetime” each time the adonis is at the plate has made this entirely enjoyable especially after the World Series woes.

The question is whether they still think he’s earned his pinstripes yet, since he still needs to do it in October. Judge is still the King of New York, and the Yanks fans have life again.

PHOTO: Junfu Han/USA TODAY NETWORK/Imagn Images