Back in the 1980s, there was no doubt that Dwight Gooden was the most popular starting pitcher on the team.  There was just a different buzz when he was on the mound as opposed to when Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda, or Sid Fernandez took the mound.  The reason was that Gooden had unparalleled and electric stuff.  As a result, it seemed Gooden was always pitching before a sellout crowd at Shea.  It didn’t matter if it was a 10:00 A.M. game on a Monday against the Flushing Little League team, Shea Stadium would be sold out to see him pitch.  Without a doubt, Gooden was a fan favorite.

As we saw with Gooden, attendance is a good measure to determine who the Mets fans favorite pitcher is.  It is a measure which shows who the fans will pay to go see pitch.  So far this season, the Mets have played 46 home games drawing 1,582,503 fans, which averages out to 34,402 fans per game.  On average, Mets fans have paid to see Jacob deGrom over any other Mets pitcher this season:

To be fair, there are a number of factors that drives attendance other than the night’s starting pitcher.  For example, fans are more apt to attend games over the weekend and on holidays (Memorial Day and the Fourth of July).  For the purposes of this analysis, weekend games are classified as Friday through Sunday games.  Over the course of the first 46 home games, the Mets have played 23 weekday games and 23 weekend and holiday games. In the Mets 23 home weekend and holiday games, the Mets have averaged 38,060 fans per game as opposed to 30,745 fans during the Mets 23 weekday games.  Looking at weekend games, deGrom is still the pitcher that Mets fans are more likely to pay to see pitch:

With weekday games, the ones that take a little more effort to attend, we begin to see a shift away from deGrom.  In fact, fans have come out to see Matt Harvey more than any other pitcher on weekday games:

There are other factors to keep into consideration as well.  For example, one driving force behind attendance has been the Mets games against some of the better teams in baseball.  In the Mets 30 home games against teams with a record over .500, the Mets average attendance is 35,415 per game.  As we have already seen in some of the above analyses, more fans come out to see deGrom pitch against the better teams in baseball than any other Mets starter:

If teams that are over .500 are going to be of interest, it should come as no surprise that the Mets home games agains their 2015 postseason opponents have also driven attendance.  In the Mets nine home games against their postseason rivals, the Mets average attendance has been 39,432.  It should be noted that Harvey has not pitched against any of those opponents, nor will he with his season ending surgery.  Furthermore, Steven Matz only made one start against such an opponent.  With those factors in place, the starting pitcher the Mets fans paid most to see in the rematch games was Bartolo Colon:

Astoundingly, the Mets attendance against their NL East opponents has been poor.  While the Mets have averaged 34,042 fans per game through the first 46 games of the season, they are only drawing an average of 33,044 fans for NL East opponents.  Much of that is attributable to how bad the Braves and Phillies are.  The Marlins aren’t exactly driving fans to the park either despite the Mets being in a Wild Card race with them.  With that in mind, the fans want to see deGrom pitch against NL East opponents more than any other pitcher:

Looking at the attendance figures, the Mets have had 16 such games, and they are only drawing 32,504 fans per game.  With respect to the other subset of games, this is the group the fans want to see the least.  Generally speaking, there needs to be an incentive for the fans to go to the ballpark.  Looking at the attendance figures more in depth, deGrom taking the mound seems to be an incentive for the fans to go out and see the Mets play a bad baseball team:

Weighing each of these factors, the attendance figures suggest that Jacob deGrom is the Mets fans favorite starting pitcher with Noah Syndergaard not too far behind. These numbers shouldn’t be that surprising as deGrom and Syndergaard have been the Mets two best pitchers all year, and will likely be the starters for Game One and Game Two of this year’s NLDS.