This is what a losing streak does to Cubs fan confidence

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

The long losing streak the Cubs INSERT END HERE? did what might be called “reverse wonders” for your votes in the SB Nation FanPulse survey.

A week ago, confidence had risen from 13 percent to 43 percent, after the Cubs won five in a row and appeared to have at least a wild-card spot locked up.

After the losing streak?

Yikes. That’s six percent, by far a season low. And, completely understandable after a losing streak that put the team out of postseason consideration and raising questions about what comes next.

Those answers, we don’t have yet. And we don’t yet know whether Joe Maddon will return as Cubs manager in 2020, though it is widely assumed that Joe and the team will part company next week. (Who knows? Maybe they’ll both surprise us.)

But those surveyed still had confidence in Maddon, at least at the time of the survey: 61 percent still approved of Joe as manager. That’s also a season low, but it’s still a reasonable figure, although it ranks 21st among all teams’ fans surveyed in the FanPulse poll regarding their own manager. (Craig Counsell of the Brewers was first at 98 percent of Brewers fans; Clint Hurdle of the Pirates was last, with only six percent of Pirates fans approving of his performance.)

FanPulse members were also asked this national question:

I’m surprised as many as 34 percent answered “yes.” Both Christian Yelich and Mike Trout missed about the last three weeks of the season with injuries, but both had far more than enough plate appearances to qualify (Yelich, 580; Trout, 600) and both had outstanding performances. If these players had missed that number of games randomly during the season and put up the numbers they had, no one would be questioning their MVP credentials.

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