The 2025 FanGraphs Fan Alternate Program: Introduction and Entrance Survey

As we get additional and additional into the month of Could, indicators of summer season are popping up throughout us. Allergy symptoms are flaring, you can begin to belief the main league stat leaderboards, and schools throughout the nation are wrapping up their spring semesters.

That final level is vital, as a result of summer season is the season of examine overseas. Yearly round this time, hundreds of American undergraduates get on planes, be taught to navigate a international nation, meet new folks, and uncover that their Spanish will get approach higher after three or 4 beers. It’s a wonderful expertise, and I wish to deliver it to you, the FanGraphs readers.

Welcome to the 2025 FanGraphs Fan Alternate Program.

For one week, I need you to place your favourite staff on the shelf and observe a distinct one. Do no matter you do within the regular course of being a fan, however do it for one more ballclub.

Why?

I’ve been kicking this concept round for a pair years now, as a result of I’ve seen loads of baseball followers put their blinders up. In soccer, or, more and more, basketball, followers of the game watch a number of totally different video games. Baseball is extra regionalized; followers have a tendency to look at their very own staff to the exclusion of all others.

And there’s nothing mistaken with that. Baseball groups play six video games every week, every lasting virtually three hours; in the event you watched all the pieces, you wouldn’t have time to feed your self. However the extra you watch only one staff, the much less perspective you may have about what’s occurring with the opposite 29 golf equipment. And with out that comparability, sarcastically, you’re much less capable of choose your personal membership.

I don’t assume it is a baseball-specific downside. I’m going by means of life terrified by the rising solipsism and incuriosity that our political and enterprise leaders are encouraging and rewarding. A society of 350 million foremost characters is hardly a society worthy of the identify. However that’s a narrative for one more weblog; I’m largely concerned with how this is applicable to baseball.

When you take part, you’ll see how others stay, and — I hope — emerge with higher data and extra empathy. It’s the purpose of any trade program: Find out how different folks stay so you possibly can higher determine the way you wish to stay.

What do I’ve to do?

I wish to make this as straightforward as attainable. From June 16 to June 23, do no matter you’d ordinarily do in the middle of following baseball, however do it for one more staff.

When you watch two video games every week usually, watch two totally different video games every week. When you observe your membership’s beat writers on social media, observe one other membership’s beat writers and skim their work. Don’t change anything about your life.

In case your typical baseball-watching expertise entails going to video games recurrently in particular person, I depart it to you to determine it out. I actually am not asking anybody to get on a airplane to observe the Diamondbacks to Toronto for the week. (Except you wish to; I hear Toronto’s beautiful in the summertime.)

However first: Fill out this entrance survey, which asks you questions on your present favourite staff. It’s opinion-based and virtually all multiple-choice (the previous couple of questions are open-ended however solely require a participant’s identify), but it surely’s comparatively concerned. Much less concerned than the SATs, but it surely’ll take a minute, which is why I’m giving everybody 4 weeks to do it.

You don’t have to be a FanGraphs Member to take part or something (although I strongly encourage you to make the most of this outrageous cut price), however you do want a legitimate e-mail handle. Concern not; I cannot signal you up for any advertising and marketing lists. I simply want a strategy to distribute the exit survey that’ll be coming after Alternate Week, and to tie the responses to each surveys collectively.

What’s my new favourite staff?

I assigned every staff a counterpart from the opposite league, and to ease everybody’s agita about team-swapping, I instituted just a few guidelines:

• No native rivals, so Mets followers don’t get the Yankees, Angels followers don’t get the Dodgers, and so forth.
• No current (i.e., inside the previous 10 years) World Collection opponents. When you’re a Braves fan who received’t watch the Twins since you’re nonetheless ticked off in regards to the 1991 World Collection, I salute you, King Hater, however there’s solely a lot I can do.
• You received’t get a staff that’s enjoying your favourite staff on the week in query. That’d defeat the aim of the entire experiment.
• A lot of the trade groups are inside one time zone of the unique favourite, so that you don’t should name out of labor at midday or keep up previous midnight if you wish to take part.
• There are 5 NL groups within the left two time zones and solely three AL groups, so I needed to fudge it in two spots. The Purple Sox, who’re on a West Coast street journey the week of the sixteenth, bought assigned to a West Coast staff. The Diamondbacks are at Toronto and Colorado the identical week, so I gave them to a the AL Central’s White Sox, who’re inside one time zone of each cities.
• Inside these restrictions, I attempted to match momentary followers with groups that will provide one thing totally different from what they’d ordinarily be watching. So don’t fear, White Sox followers, I didn’t stick you with the Rockies.
• I’m sorry, somebody needed to get the Astros.

Listed below are your assigned groups. This assumes you may have entry to MLB.TV, or Further Innings, or another technique of watching all 30 groups no matter the place you reside:

What occurs in the event you don’t have MLB.TV?

Effectively, there’s a seven-day free trial out there at MLB.com. Join on the sixteenth and that’ll cowl you for the entire week. When you can’t entry the free trial however nonetheless wish to take part, you possibly can observe any staff you get by yourself native TV. When you’re a Yankees fan however you reside in Minnesota, take the Twins. When you’re an Astros fan in Houston and also you get Rangers video games on cable, watch the Rangers, in the event you can abdomen swapping with a divisional rival.

Mainly: Observe the chart above in the event you can. If that’s not an choice, and you continue to wish to take part, do no matter is sensible for you, and I’ll account for it within the exit survey. So long as you make an sincere effort, we are able to fear about the remainder later.

What do I get out of this?

Nothing tangible. There’s no proper or mistaken reply, no strategy to win the sport. I wish to find out about how all of you eat baseball, and my hope is that you just’ll achieve some helpful perception in regards to the sport and your personal relationship with it. Perhaps a few of you’ll construct an enduring affection to your new staff, journey to see them in particular person, and whereas on the ballpark, you’ll lock eyes with a good-looking stranger throughout a crowded sizzling canine stand and fall in love.

Perhaps that’s a bit too formidable.

Worst-case state of affairs, you’ve spent a couple of minutes filling out a survey when you’re at work, and also you’ve gotten every week of attempting out a distinct staff to interrupt up the routine of a six-month season. Baseball followers know higher than anybody the worth of a change of tempo.

In order that’s the problem: Fill out the doorway survey sooner or later earlier than June 16, tune in to your new staff when the time comes, and anticipate additional directions. I hope you’ll take part, in the event you’re in a position. I’m excited to seek out out what all of us be taught collectively.