SB Nation Reacts: Fan confidence comes crashing

And it’ll probably be worse the next time around.

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, 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 Reacts.

We are back for another edition of SB Nation Reacts, and more specifically a post-trade deadline edition of SB Nation Reacts. For these polls, which were conducted immediately following the deadline, we have the latest fan confidence polls (guess which direction the Red Sox are heading) as well as a few more general questions about the trade deadline at large. Here are the results.

Fan confidence going down

After the Red Sox failed to do too much of anything at the deadline — and this poll is by and large coming before this massive slump in the loss column — confidence in the direction of the team took a huge hit, falling all the way down to 55 percent. That does sound high, but A, even now they are a playoff team in the standings, and they were still in first when this poll first went out, and B, it’s the lowest they’ve been since their first series of the year against the Orioles.

I imagine next week is only going to be worse, and it’s hard to argue with it. Everything is happening at once for this team, and in the worst possible way. The lack of activity at the deadline would have been an annoyance if they had even gone .500 since then, but it wouldn’t have been as frustrating as it is now. Fair or not, that’s just the way it works. The timing, more than anything, has sucked, and it feels like quicksand now. It’s not a great feeling.

Which trade had the biggest impact

Yeah, I mean I’m not really sure what any other answer could be. Scherzer and Turner as a combination were clearly the most talented addition anyone made at the deadline, so if your definition of impact is who produces the most WAR the rest of the way how can you argue with that? And if your argument is how much it swings a team’s postseason chances, the Dodgers are in a tight division race with two other teams, and whoever doesn’t win has to face one of the others in a win-or-go-home game. Winning the division is crucial. There were a ton of great players dealt this year, but I don’t see how you can’t choose this one.