Sep 18th 2008 9:00AM by Pat Lackey (author feed)

Unless you’re a Red Sox fan, the best story in baseball this year is the Tampa Bay Rays. By now, everyone likely knows the story but let’s recap. In 1998, the Rays came into existence. In every season between 1998 and 2007, they won between 61 and 69 games, except for in 2004. They won 70 that year.

This year, though, is a different story. With last night’s win over the Red Sox, they’ve got 90 wins and a two-game lead in the AL East, a division that seemed to be locked in a deep stranglehold that the Yankees and Red Sox would never let up. The amazing part is that everyone saw this coming in some form. GM Andrew Friedman has rebuilt Chuck LaMar’s mistake from the ground up and the Rays are winning because they’re good, not because they’re lucky.

Baseball is cyclical and every couple of years, a young team bursts on the scene and surprises everyone. Who among baseball’s long suffering franchises is next? There are seven franchises that haven’t made the playoffs since the turn of the century; the Pirates, Nationals, Royals, Brewers, Blue Jays, Reds, Orioles, and Rangers (sorry Mariners and Giants fans, you’ve been good this century and that disqualifies you from this exercise), so let’s take a look at them and see if we can’t figure out who might be in line for the next turnaround.Continue Reading