FanPulse: 76% of Marlins fans supportive of post-Labor Day tank race

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

It wouldn’t be accurate to claim that this 2019 Marlins season has gone according to plan. They played a terrible and boring brand of baseball through the first quarter of the schedule, and after a somewhat encouraging midseason stretch, cratered again after the trade deadline. The Fish enter Friday night with a 50-89 record, even less competitive than last summer’s squad.

You will see a mostly empty Marlins Park during this penultimate homestand for reasons covered by Rob Arthur of Baseball Prospectus (subscription required). When your most intriguing September call-up is journeyman Brian Moran and your best player is lost for the season due to injury, the fans are not being adequately incentivized to show up.

And yet, optimism abounds! Even before this week’s road series win over the Pirates, 76% of our FanPulse respondents expressed confidence in the future of the franchise. That figure held steady from the previous week. Confidence has consistently hovered above 50% in every survey since Opening Day.

Universal praise for the Marlins’ top prospects has helped assuage stress about the current struggles. Also, enduring all of this has Miami virtually locked in for another top-five overall pick in next June’s highly anticipated amateur draft class.

However, there still must be persons held accountable for underachieving at the major league level, the most obvious scapegoat being manager Don Mattingly. Danny Martinez shared his thoughts on the pending search for his replacement.

Even the 44% of those who approved of his job performance in the latest survey should understand why the Marlins desire a different figure in charge.

More polling and illustrations next week! Sign up here to give us a balanced representation of the Marlins fanbase.