Arizona Diamondbacks February confidence poll

January results

On the plus side, we had far and away MORE votes than any other poll in the history of this monthly feature, now entering its fourth year. There were a total of 368 cast, exactly a hundred more than the previous highest, all the way back in February 2016. This perhaps indicates that interest in the team has not gone away. However, coming on the heels of the departure of Paul Goldschmidt, the best position player the team has ever had... Well, it’s no surprise that optimism and confidence were generally hard to locate.

• 30% - 1 (not confident in the slightest)
• 18% - 2
• 17% - 3
• 11% - 4
• 10% - 5
• 8% - 6
• 2% - 7
• 2% - 8
• 3% - 9 (very, very, VERY confident)

Not much of a shock to see those 1’s, almost tripling in number from the poll taken at the beginning of December. The 30.4% was the highest for any category since August, and the most one votes since September 2016. Though we are still a VERY long way from the all-time high: worth remembering than in August that year, more than three-quarters (76.4%) of votes were a 1. So, yeah: things could clearly still be a great deal darker. From there it was almost relentless decline, each higher category getting fewer votes than the one above it, until a brief uptick at the very top of the scale, where the die-hard optimists continue their lonely vigil.

Below, you can see the breakdown of voting for the past year. Time progresses from the top down, beginning with the February 2018 poll.

The average confidence dropped by just over three-quarters of a point, though as noted, we are not seeing the complete implosion of confidence which we experiencing in 2016. The majority of people still voted three or better, likely with an eye to the future, and the overall figure was 3.09. While also the lowest average we’ve seen since September 2016, it’s still more than double the all-time low of 1.47, reached one month earlier.

Here’s the chart with all the poll averages.

February poll

Is the worst over? We’ll see what the poll has to say, but the news over the past month has perhaps been more positive. We signed two reasonably significant free agents, in Wilmer Flores and Greg Holland, while several top 100 prospect lists looked more kindly on the Diamondbacks’ farm system than for a while. We’ve also had another month in which to come to terms with the loss of Paul Goldschmidt. Does that make any significant difference or not? Here’s the poll: as usual, explanations are welcome in the comments...