Did the Red Sox make the right choice firing Dave Dombrowski?

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.

The big news from Red Sox world last week was, as we all know, the team firing President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski. It was a shocking move, not only in terms of the decision in and of itself but also the timing. There are a ton of opinions on the matter as well as what comes next, so we decided to roll out a special Red Sox-only additional question for this week’s Fanpulse survey. The question was simple: Did the Red Sox make the right move in firing Dave Dombrowski? It was an easy yes or no, and the results were, well, not as split as I was expecting.

In fact, it was a straight-up blowout. The overwhelming majority of the respondents agreed that the team made the right move with this firing. A whopping 83 percent voted “yes” in this poll compared to just 17 percent voting “no”. That’s how math works, ya know.

I think if we got a little more in the weeds there would probably be a bit more split in the yes camp as to why they think it was the right move. Some would say he’s just not a good GM, some would say he wouldn’t be able to rebuild this roster on the fly, some would say the team needs a more traditional rebuild for which he’s not the best equipped. I still fall on the no side of this poll, which apparently puts me in the minority.

When I saw these results, I was curious what would happen with the weekly “Are you confident in the direction of the team” poll. Understandably, the number of people voting “yes” on this one has been pretty low all year. However, with so many people agreeing with the move to fire Dombrowski I expected an uptick in “yes” votes here. If you agree with the firing one would think at least a few more people would also be happier with the direction of the team. I was wrong, as the confidence rate here fell from 31 percent to 17 percent. Of course, simply firing the head of the front office doesn’t mean the franchise is automatically heading in the right direction. They haven’t hired or even interviewed potential replacements, much less have any roster decisions been made. For whatever reason, confidence in Alex Cora did jump a bit from 54 percent to 63 percent.

Who will win the NL Central?

The national poll this week was about one of the two competitive division races in baseball for this stretch run, asking who will win the NL Central.

The overwhelming majority of the respondents believe the Cardinals will take this divsion, which makes sense. They were leading at the start of this week when these polls went out and they continue to lead now. I would also vote for St. Louis. Interestingly, Milwaukee wasn’t even part of this poll, though I think if it went out again today they probably would be even with Christian Yelich.