A Brewers Fan’s Guide On Who To Root For In The 2022 Postseason

For the first time since 2017, the Milwaukee Brewers missed out on the postseason completely. The players are back at home and we won’t have another Brewers game until next year. But there’s still another month of baseball left to be played.

Some of you may decide not to watch the postseason at all and don’t care about it since the Brewers aren’t in it, and that’s fine. But some of you will still watch the playoffs and are searching for a team to root for since the Brewers won’t be there.

So who should you root for this October? Who do we want to see win the World Series if it won’t be the Milwaukee Brewers? Well, we have this handy guide to help you decide.

Here’s a Brewers fan’s guide on the reasons to root for and against every 2022 MLB playoff team.

Houston Astros, AL West champion

Reasons to root for: Former Brewers catcher Martin Maldonado is the starting catcher for the Astros. He was beloved in his time in Milwaukee and still is by many fans. Also former Brewer Mauricio Dubon is on the Astros. He didn’t have much time to be beloved by most of the fanbase but he was a big piece of the Travis Shaw trade.

Also in the Astros bullpen is old friend Will Smith. These are three very likable players that are easy to root for.

Reasons to root against: Bang, bang, bang! The stain of the trash can banging scheme from a few years ago will always follow the Astros and make most of the country root against them.

Plus, the Brewers needed the Astros to sweep the Phillies to get ourselves into the postseason and they let themselves get shutout after a miracle comeback by the Brewers to keep their hopes alive. Houston didn’t keep up their end, so should they deserve our support? Perhaps not.

New York Yankees, AL East Champion

Reasons to root for: Aaron Judge has put up an incredible and historic season. It would be cool to watch him continue that into the postseason and see more history be made.

Reasons to root against: The Yankees are the evil empire. They have endless amounts of money, and they act as if not winning a World Series since 2009 is a long drought. Oooh it’s been 13 years since your last World Series and you’re crying like it’s never going to happen for you ever again? Give me a break.

They already have 27 rings and they don’t need another to make them and their fanbase even more insufferable to deal with.

Cleveland Guardians, AL Central Champion

Reasons to root for: The Brewers can see a lot of themselves in the Cleveland Guardians. They’re a small market, low budget team with an ownership group that doesn’t want to run up payroll to where it needs to be. Despite that, the Guardians won the AL Central behind a contact-oriented offense that is devoid of star players outside of Jose Ramirez.

They’re built on a strong pitching staff, it’s practically a carbon copy of the Brewers formula, except they have hitters that reach base more consistently. They’re a small market underdog, and we can empathize with that and they’ll be easy to root for.

Reasons to root against: Ownership slashed payroll to the bone for Cleveland. They have a payroll of just $69MM this year. If they can win the World Series on that kind of a budget, that might inspire Mark Attanasio to try to do the same, or at least continue to limit payroll.

Brewers fan’s guide on who to root for in 2022 MLB Postseason

Los Angeles Dodgers, NL West Champion

Reasons to root for: The Dodgers have Wisconsin native Gavin Lux on their roster. They also have old friends Jimmy Nelson and Phil Bickford on their roster so if they win it all, those guys get rings.

Reasons to root against: They can buy anyone they like and they do. They bought Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Trea Turner, etc. They can shell out contracts like there’s no tomorrow while the Brewers “have to” trade Josh Hader to remain competitive long term. They have an unfair advantage with a yearly $200+MM TV deal that puts their revenues way above anything the Brewers could dream of.

Their budget is endless and so is their ego.

The Dodgers also eliminated the Brewers in 2018 when the Crew should’ve been in the World Series, and they eliminated Milwaukee again in 2020.

Atlanta Braves, NL East Champion

Reasons to root for: Old friend Orlando Arcia has been the starting second baseman for the Braves since Ozzie Albies‘ injury. Arcia was frustrating to watch yet still beloved by many in Milwaukee. Another old friend, Manny Pina is on the Braves and is in search of his first World Series ring. He’s another beloved former Brewer and it would be great to see him on top of the baseball world. He certainly deserves it.

Also, it’s fun to watch Ronald Acuna, Jr. play baseball.

Reasons to root against: The Braves were the team that eliminated the Brewers last season. So there’s an easy reason not to like them. Plus, they won the World Series last year, we don’t need to see them win again, let’s have someone else win it all this year. Parity is good for the sport and if we’re rooting for the Braves, that’s not good for parity.

It was tough enough seeing them win last year knowing that the Brewers could’ve beaten them and been in that position to win it all themselves. Let’s not have a repeat of that.

St. Louis Cardinals, NL Central Champion

Reasons to root for: None

Reasons to root against: They are the St. Louis Cardinals.

Brewers fan’s guide on who to root for in 2022 MLB Postseason

New York Mets, NL Wild Card

Reasons to root for: Daniel Taylor Vogelbach. The Mets have Big Dan and that is reason enough to root for them to win. Plus they have another old friend in Eduardo Escobar on their roster.

Another reason to like the Mets is they have Terrance Gore on their roster. He’s a 31 year old pinch running specialist with only 74 career at-bats to his name in eight MLB seasons but he makes an appearance on some postseason team’s roster every year to help bring some speed on the bases. It would be a cool story to see him get yet another World Series ring for his role.

Mets fans are also a long-suffering fanbase, despite being in the New York market. Their organization has been marked by ineptitude with ownership and the front office and they’re finally seeing something good come together. Mets fans are much easier to tolerate than Yankees fans, except when they’re trying to poach our executives.

That’s another reason to root for the Mets. If they win the World Series this year, perhaps they’ll back off their pursuit of David Stearns once and for all.

Reasons to root against: Steve Cohen, in all his infinite money, completely reset the market for starting pitchers when he threw $43MM per year at Max Scherzer. That contract singlehandedly made it so much more difficult for the Brewers to be able to sign Corbin Burnes to a contract extension, if they ever decide to start those talks. The bar has been raised so high the Brewers might not even try to extend Burnes. They shouldn’t get rewarded with a World Series for that.

Plus, the more they win, the more we’re going to see Edwin Diaz‘s entrance song ‘Narco’ by Blasterjaxx and Timmy Trumpet everywhere on postseason coverage. It’s a great entrance song and Diaz has been great, but we’ve seen so much stuff on this for months now, and it would only get worse if the Mets make a deep run. Do we need more interviews with Timmy Trumpet? It’s a song, it’s cool, but everyone is totally going to overdo it in the postseason with that.

San Diego Padres, NL Wild Card

Reasons to root for: The Padres are another long-suffering fanbase. It would be nice to see them win and make a deep run after going all in the past few years on this roster. Their success might convince the Brewers to go more all in on their roster core.

Of course they also have a few old friends of the Brewers in Trent Grisham and, yes, Josh Hader.

Reasons to root against: As much as having an old friend in Josh Hader is a reason to root for the Padres, it could also be seen as a reason to root against them. The wounds of that trade are still fresh for most of us. Imagine seeing Josh Hader close the final game of the World Series to win it for the Padres. Would you be happy for him or in so much pain that he didn’t get a chance to do that in a Brewers uniform?

If the wounds are still too fresh for you, seeing Hader and the Padres succeed in October may be too much to bear.

Also, they have Manny Machado, who kicked Jesus Aguilar in the ankle in 2018 because he wanted to be a jerkface. We will never forget that.

Philadelphia Phillies, NL Wild Card

Reasons to root for: The Phillies have had an 11 year postseason drought. It’s been a while for them so it wouldn’t be too bad to see them have some success in October. They also have two old friends on their roster in Jean Segura and Corey Knebel. Those are two very likable former Brewers.

Reasons to root against: For starters, they took the final Wild Card spot instead of it going to the Brewers. Although to be fair, the Phillies did give Milwaukee a whole bunch of opportunities to take it. Still, it would sting seeing the Phillies make a deep run knowing that could’ve been the Brewers.

Which team will you be rooting for in the 2022 MLB playoffs?