Arizona Diamondbacks: January confidence poll

December results

Very little happened during the month of November which could be said to have moved the needle much for the Diamondbacks. We picked up a basket of chicken non-tenders, saying goodbye to Jordan Luplow and Caleb Smith. ZIPS looked kindly on Arizona’s prospects. And that was about it. It’s typically a quiet month. So quiet, in fact, that I’d only remembered to post a December confidence poll once in the three seasons from 2019-21. Yay for me, I guess! But in general, change has been limited from November to December, with the average variation only about half a point in one direction or the other. No reason think that would be exceeded here, but let’s go to the results.

• 7% - 1 (not confident in the slightest)
• 6% - 2
• 5% - 3
• 17% - 4
• 10% - 5
• 24% - 6
• 25% - 7
• 4% - 8
• 3% - 9 (very, very, VERY confident)

A somewhat surprising increase in the “1” votes, pretty much five times what we had at the start of November. I’d like to thank the Luplow family for stopping by. :) “4” also had a bit of an increase, and the sudden surge in “6” from November, dropped back from 40% to 24%, most of those up-ticking into “7”, which almost doubled from 13% last month. Overall, some were more confident, but not enough to overcome those who went the other way, and the average score dropped, albeit not by much. It declined from 5.41 to 5.25. That is the highest year end score recorded since 2017, though this is probably due to the lack of a 2019 poll, which was above 6 for both November and January, in the wake of Mike Hazen’s arrival.

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.

January poll

At least there’s news since last time, even if the winter meetings went by without the D-backs handing out hundreds of millions of dollars to anyone. The big news was the trade of Daulton Varsho to Toronto, hopefully bringing back a long-term solution at catcher, as well as a right-handed outfielder. But there was also the signing of Evan Longoria, the return of Zach Davies and we traded for some infielder, whose name I can’t quite raise the energy to look up. Hey, once he makes the roster, then I’ll be bothered enough, okay? Hard to say what the overall impact will be: it may have somewhat dampened enthusiasm for 2023 though looks, we hope, to make for an improved Diamondbacks roster beyond that point.

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.