Arizona Diamondbacks: November confidence poll

October results

The D-backs finished their campaign with a record of 74-88. While still only good for fourth in the division, that’s still a 22-win improvement over the previous season, and better than most pre-season predictions. The team even challenged the Giants for third, being just a game back in mid-September. All told, although they were still a long way back of a play-off spot, finishing 13 back in even the expanded wild-card race, the strong performance of some young players does suggest there is perhaps light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s just hope, as the old joke says, that it’s not an oncoming train. But the optimism was reflected in the poll results taken at the start of October, when there was a handful of games left to play.

• 2% - 1 (not confident in the slightest)
• 2% - 2
• 9% - 3
• 11% - 4
• 9% - 5
• 28% - 6
• 34% - 7
• 3% - 8
• 0% - 9 (very, very, VERY confident)

Startling to see the almost complete evaporation of anyone below a “3”. You have to go back more than two and a half years, all the way to February 2020, to find a comparable lack of pessimism. Most of this has gone into the upper-middle bands, with almost two-thirds of voters (62$) sitting at a “6” or “7” in this poll. Very few were prepared to go any higher however, reflecting an understandable caution. I don’t think any of us will feel “happy” with the team until we see what Mike Hazen and his team do to fix the dumpster fire which was the 2022 Arizona bullpen. But despite a losing record in September, the overall score still went up half a point, from 5.14 to 5.64, the best for an October since 2019.

Below, you can see the breakdown for the past 12 polls’ results, followed by the line graph showing the trends over this and previous seasons.

November poll

I’m not expecting a great deal of change this month. With the World Series still ongoing, the team hasn’t been able to make any significant moves as yet, so it’s very much a holding pattern. However, the playoffs have perhaps shown, again, the only thing that matters is getting to the dance. For the second season in the row, a sub-90 win team is playing in the World Series. There’s also the decent performance put up by the Guardians, who seem to provide a good low-budget template for the Diamondbacks to follow.

But what do you reckon? As ever, feel free to explain your choice in the comments, especially if it has changed from the previous one.