A bit later than the start of the month, for Scotland-related reasons explained yesterday. But this was entirely deliberate, in order that this month’s poll could take the just concluded winter meetings into consideration. That’s my excuse, anyway, and I’m sticking to it! But before we get to that, here are the results of the November poll, the first to take into account the arrival of Mike Hazen - though at the time, we still did not have a replacement for Chip Hale:
- 10% - 1 (not confident in the slightest)
- 6% - 2
- 12% - 3
- 15% - 4
- 25% - 5
- 16% - 6
- 8% - 7
- 3% - 8
- 5% - 9 (very, very, VERY confident)
What stands out here is the almost complete implosion of the "1" vote. Just three months earlier, at the beginning of August, it was rocking more than three-quarters of the vote (76.4%). Now, it’s down to below one in ten, at 9.6% to be precise. This marks the first time since May it has not been the most-popular choice, and it at its lowest since Opening Day, though it’s still more than ten times what it was at that point. In both the March and April polls, there was a single and solitary person who expressed a confidence of one; I’d love to find out who that was, for if they weren’t trolling the poll, they clearly saw something was rotten in the state of Arizona, long before the rest of us.
On the other hand, no particular consensus as to where confidence should be, with nothing getting more than a quarter of votes. This somewhat reflects the situation after the first month of the season, where "5" was also the top choice, getting 21% of votes. However, the needle is clearly moving in the opposite direction compared to then. We get a third consecutive month of growth, and the overall figure comes in at 4.63, more than half a point better than at any time since the season opened. Here’s how that number stacks up as we go into the last month of 2016.
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And that brings us to this month’s poll, which has seen since last time, the appointment of Torey Lovullo, and the arrival of Fernando Rodney. But we have also had the departure of Welington Castillo and perhaps also a realization that the team’s payroll is apparently more likely to be lower than last year’s. Will that mean the honeymoon is over for Hazen and company? [Yeah, I figured I should explain the photo for this story sooner or later!] As usual, vote below and explain your choice in the comments...