Introducing the Fan Confidence Poll

March 2, 2009 by Mike Axisa 32 Comments

By nature, we Yankee fans are an arrogant bunch. It’s the New York in us, and we can’t help it. However, being arrogant and being confident are two different things, and I wanted to try to get an idea of how confident fans are in the general direction of their team.

Stealing an idea Taking a page from MetsBlog and Rays Index, I’m going to hold a weekly poll asking how confident you guys are in the team. I was originally thinking of conducting the poll once a month, but then we won’t be able to get a sense of how things like big wins, crippling losses, short term injuries, and the “honeymoon effect” of player acquisitions changes the perception of the team’s fan base. So from now on, every Monday morning you’ll find a poll like this, asking you to rate your confidence in the team.

Once we have a big enough sample (let’s call it two months), I’ll set up a permanent link somewhere on the site directing you to a graph showing how everyone’s confidence in the team has changed over time. But for now, please take a second to answer the poll question below. Thanks in advance.

Matt

Shouldn’t “zero confidence” be a zero?
- Spaceman.Spiff
  
  What are you, a mathematician?
- http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike A.
  
  Eh, close enough.
- barry
  
  actually not in real polling, it’s impossible to assign a value to zero.
- jsbrendog
  
  theoretically if you have zero confidence then i owuld question if you are a yankee fan. i mean its psosible, but even the msot dour pessimistic fan has to have a 1 no?
A.D.

I like the idea, after the yanks loose 2 out of 3 from the Sox we’re down to confidence of 3
Steve H

How the hell can someone have ZERO confidence in this organization???

They must think CC loves the West coast and the NL and will never come to NY.
- Stephen
  
  yanks can’t win unless joba’s in teh bullpen!1!
- A.D.
  
  Imagine what they’d think if they were a Royals fan
- Mike Pop
  
  I have none. How in the hell are the Yankees going to win when they have no farm system and all they do is bring in high priced FA’s! Boston and Tampa have the best farms systems eva, how the hell are they going to compete with that!!!!11!! Plus with Boston’s grit…
  - Stephen
    
    Jeter’s old. Posada’s gonna get hurt. Sabathia is too fat and won’t be able to handle NY. Teixeira’s overrated. Arod’s gonna fall apart. Burnett’s probably already hurt. Cano sucks. 80 win team for the next 5 years.
    
    jk
mike eff

i love watching the mets fans confidence plummet on their site. have you guys ever read THEIR comment section?
- Sweet Dick Willie
  
  Well, if Santana is really hurt, their confidence SHOULD plummet.
Steve

If only we had a few more position prospects *cough SS
bill73083

This is a really good idea. Something that I would also be interested in, maybe sometime in the future, is to see how Yankee fans are confident about this coming-up season, as opposed to beyond this season
Count Zero

I like this idea a lot, guys. Curious to see how it reads after a month or two…
MattG

My confidence in the Yankees is not impacted by any other teams, such as Boston and Tampa Bay. Therefore, my confidence in the Yankees organization is higher than my expectations of the Yankees organization. Asked if I expect the Yankees to make the playoffs this year, I can’t give them more than a six-point-seven.

Another real interesting question would be to rank all the organizations by confidence. I think Boston might be first on that list, unfortunately.
- http://actyankee.blogspot.com Matt
  
  Well, they did make the absolute best free-agent moves in the off-season and are the greatest thing to ever happen to baseball and they’re the little engine that could and…yeah. Don’t you get it? The Sox are awesome and the Yankees are worthless.
  - MattG
    
    I don’t get your point, thats for sure. I think you mistake me for some rabid Red Sox fan.
    
    Boston’s free agent dealings are petty and small time. I definitely have more confidence in the Yankees’ FA methods than Boston’s, helped in no small part by having more money.
    
    However, Boston has out-drafted the Yankees repeatedly in recent years, done a better job on international signings, and have done way better at identifying wayward talent and signing it long-term. Boston has put themselves into a position where they do not need to sign the best free agent talent, because they have in-house options. In nearly every other way, they have been the more dependable organization since Theo arrived.
    - http://actyankee.blogspot.com Matt
      
      I was just being incredibly sarcastic, that’s all. The Sox are a very good team and their fans should be confident.
      - MattG
        
        Gotcha. I agree–the stereotypical RS fan is pretty obnoxious.
        
        http://actyankee.blogspot.com Matt
        
        Yeah, sadly I go to school up in Sox territory. I was also just echoing the sentiments of the media; it seems that even though the Yankees made their team markedly better this off-season, there are stil, in the media, “tons of questions” about the Yankees, while the Sox with their marginal moves have no questions at all.
- A.D.
  
  Boston has to be up there, strong MLB club, mix of some young players, and a pretty strong farm.
  
  For me the only knock on the Yanks is lack of positional prospects, and a fair amount of high upside pitchers that still have plenty of bust potential.
  - whozat
    
    The team only started paying attention to the draft three years ago, and with their draft position, they only get to draft toolsy high-school kids and high-upside/high-risk pitchers. CJ Henry was a fine pick at the time, but he busted. It happens. The high schoolers they’ve drafted are all still in the low-minors. They’re a couple years behind the sox. Only way to remedy that is to do something like trade Wang this offseason. If enough young pitching steps up this year…they could seriously consider doing that if the right deal is out there.
PhilK

I think you need to define “Yankee’s overall future”. I firmly believe they will exist, overall, in the future. How about do you think they will win a World Championship in the next 3 years??
http://newstadiuminsider.com Ross

Spectacular idea – this is my favorite feature on MetsBlog
Brian

I’m somewhat confident. If Brett Gardner does a reasonable job in CF, and either Swish or Nady gets off to a hot start in RF, we should be alright THIS YEAR.

In the long term, we need to figure out what to do with Jeter. He can’t move to 1B anymore with Tex on the team. Maybe we could try to swap him and Cano, but that isn’t really tremendously better. Left Field seems like the only spot that’s could be open for him.

We also need to start worrying about Posada and Mo. Both are getting older. Mo won’t be the closer forever, hopefully we have his eventual replacement in Melancon or someone else though. As for Posada, we’ve got a few young catchers in the system, hopefully one of them sticks. Once Matsui’s contract is up, you also get a clearer situation at DH, which can probably extend Posada’s career as a hitter, anyway.
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Jay

Until they learn that they can destroy the value of any player by overpaying them and compete with a team like the Red Sox that not only understands that principle, but inculcates it into their players from Day One in order to sustain a competitive advantage, the Yankees will continue to have their teeth kicked in by the Red Sox and, probably, other teams that do understand it. Even the Mets…
Artist formerly known as ‘The’ Steve

I don’t know how anyone can be a Yankee fan and have zero confidence in them. They have 26 WS and 39 pennants for crying out loud, they must be doing SOMETHING right.

Plus, if the Yanks are so bad, who’s better by comparison? Whoever won it all last year? Look at how many teams in the past 30 years (other than the Yanks) have repeated as WS champs the following year.

Any guesses? That would be the 1991-92 Toronto Blue Jays. That’s it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Series
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The Rock

We have 2 position prospects worthy of being talked about Ajax and Montero. Montero’s future is at 1b and is blocked by Tex for 7 years so all that’s left is DH. Our pitching is pretty deep but carries a fair amount of injury risk. Overall- 6 if I’m judging the farm system alone. Factor in the rest of the team, 8.5.