10 reasons why this author is pulling for the Cleveland Guardians

The Cleveland Guardians are my new favorite team for 2022.

Full disclosure: I’m a lifetime Chicago Cubs fan, but the Cubs are as dead as Marley’s ghost this season. With two weeks plus the postseason remaining, I need a new team to root for. The Cleveland Guardians are a perfect match.

10 reasons why I’m pulling for the Cleveland Guardians in 2022

1. The Guardians are multi-dimensional. They don’t have to slug in order to win. In fact, Cleveland’s .381 slugging percentage is well below average by current MLB standards. Only one team, the Detroit Tigers, has hit fewer home runs. It doesn’t matter.

2. They play real baseball, not this boring, sanitized power game. Most of the recent rules changes were presented as an effort to make baseball more interesting by increasing the numbers of balls in play. That’s not an issue with the Guardians, the only team in baseball to have struck out fewer than 1,000 times this season. The Guardians average just 6.8 strikeouts per game; the MLB average is 8.3.

3. They really put the ball in play. Seventy-five percent of Guardians plate appearances this season result in something other than a base on balls or strikeout. That’s the highest percentage of action in baseball by a wide margin. Even other playoff-bound teams come up short. The New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, to pick two, only put the ball in play 68 percent of the time.

4. They’re serious about strikeouts being bad. Only one Cleveland player all season has struck out 100 times. The Braves already have six such players, the Yankees have five, the Dodgers and Mets both have four. Oh, and that one Cleveland player with a strikeout fetish? It was Franmil Reyes. They waived him last month. Hit the ball or get outta here.

5. Even as a four-time All Star, Jose Ramirez is underrated. Ramirez is a front-rank third baseman with 111 RBI and 72 extra base hits, and he’s only fanned fewer than 70 times in more than 520 plate appearances entering play Thursday.

6. Steven Kwan plays ball with savvy. I could watch every Kwan at-bat and feel like I was attending a science lecture. He’s batting .290 with a whiff rate below 10 percent.

7. The Guardians go. Cleveland has five players with 13 or more stolen bases. Guardians base-stealers this season have been successful in 93 of 117 attempts, an 80 percent rate. The steal isn’t dead; it’s alive on Lake Erie.

8. Can we all finally admit it … the Guardians fleeced the Mets in that Lindor deal. Cleveland got back regular middle infielders Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez. They have combined to produce 9.1 games of WAR this season. Lindor and Carlos Carrasco, the other big player in the trade, have produced 6.5 WAR this season for the Mets. And, in case you’ve forgotten, the Mets will pay Lindor and Carrasco a combined $46 million for that 5 WAR this year. The Guardians will pay Gimenez and Rosario about one-ninth that amount for 150 percent of the production.

9. Fate owes Cleveland one. Since the Cubs beat Cleveland in 2016, no fan base has waited longer than the Guardians (since 1948) for a World Series winner. As a Cubs fan, I’m all into fans getting at least one chance to root their guys home before they die. I watched too many friends and acquaintances fail to get that chance prior to 2016. A Cleveland fan who was five years old in 1948 is mid-70s today. Those fans deserve a winner.

10. SpongeBob SquarePants. In all of MLB, there is no cooler walkup music than Oscar Gonzalez’ ode to kids’ TV. When Guardians fans sing, “If nautical nonsense be something you wish, then jump on the deck and flop like a fish!” as Gonzalez approaches the plate, I so want to hear that in the World Series.