Arizona Diamondbacks June confidence poll

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With a packed program on the SnakePit yesterday, there just wasn’t time to fit in the Fanpulse results for the week, and with today being the first of the month, it seemed a good idea to combine them with our monthly taking of overall confidence.

Are you confident in the direction of the team: 68% Yes

Timing is everything. This survey took place before the team went to Colorado, and begin a losing streak which has now stretched to five games - albeit most of them by razor-thin margins. At the time, we were coming off one of the best three-game sweep in franchise history, having destroyed the San Francisco Giants. The team seemed to be on the right track, with the schedule now looking favorable, and looked to be moving back up towards wild-card contention. Hence, a nice uptick in this metric, rising by twelve percent from the previous week’s figure of 56%. But I don’t think you have to be an expert pollster to predict that the next survey is probably going to tell a very different picture...

Do you approve of the job Torey Lovullo is doing as manager? 85% YES

Much the same goes here, with a very comparable fourteen percent increase in Lovullo’s approval rating from last week. To some extent, these two questions are perhaps asking the same thing in slightly different ways, with team confidence and managerial confidence going hand in hand. Maybe next week I’ll chart the two ratings on the same graph and see what we find. [Don’t hold me to that!] I’d be curious to hear from people who vote yes to one question and no to the other. What goes into that decision? A different interpretation of managerial confidence and team confidence? Or is one shorter-term than the other?

With the MLB draft next week, there’s strong support - almost a 3-1 margin - for an international version. That may well end up becoming part of the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, which would start in December 2021. Reports indicate the current plan would involve 15 rounds, with a hard slot value for each pick determining what the receive (undrafted players could sign for up to $50,000), and teams being able to trade selections. That it’s this far along makes it seem very likely an international draft will be on the way before long. Personally, I’m fairly ambivalent: the players picked will almost all be teenagers, and likely six years or more from the majors. As a fan, hard to get too excited about that.

June confidence poll

I’m going to cut to the chase here, since I’ve already waffled on long enough. Here are the results from May:

• 1% - 1 (not confident in the slightest)
• 1% - 2
• 1% - 3
• 6% - 4
• 12% - 5
• 32% - 6
• 28% - 7
• 9% - 8
• 8% - 9 (very, very, VERY confident)

The very pleasant surprise which was April clearly played into results here, with the average going up from 4.49 to 6.29. That leap of 1.80 is the second-biggest increase in the history of this poll, trailing only the 1.92 posted at the beginning of September 2017. It is, however, more than one and a half points below the confidence at the same point last season. As above though, I strongly suspect this optimism is not going to last, and wonder if the June results might challenge the record collapse, of just over three points, in May 2016. Failing that, the June collapse of last year, at 2.64 points, is also another potential marker, even if this month’s slump was considerably less dramatic than the one one in 2018.

You want charts? I got ‘em... First, a breakdown of scores over the past year, and then the chart showing all average confidence scores.

Below is the poll for June. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty. As usual, explain yourself in the comments.