Tasser: Choosing team to root for in MLB playoffs no easy task

Featuring a refreshing variety of new and old teams this October and the addition of the exciting one-game Wild Card, Major League Baseball’s postseason is as exciting as ever.

With the Pirates once again not in the playoffs, I look forward to this time of year for all of the bandwagon-jumping opportunities.

I get to root enthusiastically for a team, take pride in their victories and suffer no pain upon their defeats.

I’ll admit that baseball, at its worst, can be time-consuming and boring with a lot of dead time. But during the playoffs, every pitch is rife with excitement, adrenaline, emotion and all of the other romanticized feelings and sensations that sports are said to provide.

So if you’re like me, you need to find a team to root for. And lucky for you, I will use my knowledge of postseason baseball bandwagoning — all 20 years of experience — to handicap the teams, allowing you to pick your new favorite ball club.

Atlanta Braves

I have three good reasons to root for the Braves: Chipper Jones, Chipper Jones and Chipper Jones. That’s it.

Wait, they’re eliminated already? Never mind then.

Texas Rangers

They’re gone, too. Aren’t one-game playoffs exciting?

St. Louis Cardinals

I will admit that I jumped all over the Cardinals’ bandwagon last season.

There was just something about Albert Pujols, David Freese and the rest of the team’s sizzling-hot finish to snatch the Wild Card on the last day of the season and subsequent march to the World Series that just won over my little heart.

Because the Cardinals are the returning World Series champs, choosing St. Louis as a bandwagon team is a no-win situation — even fellow bandwagoners will look down on you for choosing the returning champion.

Washington Nationals

This season, the Nationals made the playoffs, meaning a team from the nation’s capital will be in the playoffs for the first time since 1933.

The Nationals have evolved into a model franchise: a smaller-market team succeeding based on smart personnel moves that brought in an influx of young talent and is looking to stay in the spotlight for many more years.

For that reason, I’m staying away from them. I would like to let my jealousy develop to a point where I can hate them for being good down the line, in that cynical Pirate-fan kind of way.

San Francisco Giants

The Giants have potential as a bandwagon team, based on their quality players — Buster Posey, Hunter Pence, Pablo Sandoval, Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum — and because they beat the big-spending Los Angeles Dodgers for the West Division title.

But San Francisco is already facing elimination, and all of those likeable players may already be on the golf course by the time you read this. While it is easy to pick a new team — that’s the beauty of bandwagon-jumping — you don’t want to appear like a super bandwagon jumper or anything.

Cincinnati Reds

Hate ‘em, hate ‘em, hate ‘em.

They beat the Pirates, are loaded with talent, will be good for several years and they beat the Pirates.

I will now stare enviously at this franchise, secretly hope that Cuban defectee Aroldis Chapman gets abducted by Cuban spies and mutter about how much I hate Brandon Phillips.

Oakland Athletics

You should root for this team simply because of its general manager.

Billy Beane is a baseball genius — check out “Moneyball” if you don’t believe me — and I really want to see him actually win something of relevance.

This team won the American League West division with a salary $8 million less than the Pirates, beating the Rangers and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, who both had significantly higher salaries.

Unfortunately, like the Giants, the A’s may be eliminated by the time you read this.

Detroit Tigers

The Tigers have some solid Pittsburgh connections, which make them a possible bandwagon selection: Manager Jim Leyland and his mustache formerly managed the Pirates the last time they actually made the playoffs and light-hitting utility man Don Kelly — a Pittsburgh native who is married to Pirates’ second baseman Neil Walker’s sister — has a knack for coming through in the postseason for the Tigers.

Detroit’s best hitter, Miguel Cabrera, also won the Triple Crown this year, leading the league in batting average, home runs and runs batted in, a distinction nobody has held since 1967. So that’s cool.

On top of everything, how can you possibly hate Detroit? Ever seen “8 Mile,” starring Eminem? That place deserves some pity from everyone.

Baltimore Orioles

For the longest time, whenever I felt down about my baseball team, I could count on a select few other franchises to brighten my day.

The Orioles were always one of those teams, seemingly mired in irrelevance in a ridiculously difficult division.

Then — boom — this year, they are magically awesome.

I now hate them for depriving me of an organization to look down upon. Plus, there’s no way I’m rooting for a team from Baltimore.

New York Yankees

If you jump on the New York Yankees bandwagon, congratulations, you might be the scum of the Earth.

Jumping on the bandwagon of the richest, most successful franchise with the most obnoxious fans is like giving your track-star friend a 50-yard head start and then telling him to race your little sister as you loudly yell how you really hope your friend wins and how much your little sister sucks.

OK, so maybe that analogy didn’t make sense. But neither does rooting for the Yankees.

Write Donnie at dft6@pitt.edu.