Fan Confidence Creeping Back Up

Welcome to SB Nation FanPulse, a survey of fans across MLB. Each week, we send 30 polls to plugged in fans from each team. Red Sox fans, sign up HERE to join FanPulse.

Fan Confidence recovering

When we last spoke after our most recent Fanpulse polling of the Red Sox fanbase, confidence had cratered. Confidence in the organization had fallen down to a season-low 47 percent and it was really starting to look like this was going to be a wasted season. Since then, the team has recovered in a big way including a sweep of the Orioles on the road, two of three from Minnesota on the road and seven wins in their last eight games. Now, it should be noted that these surveys go out on Monday’s so the results likely only include the first game of that Twins series if they include any at all. However, even without factoring in the series win against an elite team, confidence is on the rise. The poll had 64 percent of Red Sox fans responding with confidence. That’s still one of the lower marks of the year, granted, but it’s trending in the right direction. As long as they take care of business this weekend against a bad Blue Jays team, things should be recovered.

Meanwhile, confidence in Alex Cora is following a similar trajectory. The confidence levels in the manager never fell quite as far as they did for the organization as a whole, but it did fall below 75 percent for the first time all year. It has now just barely crawled back over that mark at 76 percent.

Where should MLB head next?

This week’s national question ended up being a more relevant one than we could have known given the news from the Rays on Thursday. In the morning Jeff Passan had reported that the Rays were planning to split time between Tampa Bay and Montreal moving forward. That idea was eventually nixed — which is good because it was a dumb idea — but it did open a conversation of new locations for an MLB team. Montreal is the easy favorite in this vote, which is unsurprising. The former home of the Expos has had this momentum for a decade now. To me, Charlotte or Nashville would be the best ideas, though with the right ownership in place any of these locations could be viable. That’s the key here: Ownership’s willingness to invest in a team and its fans is more important than the city itself.