No. 9: Tampa Bay Rays

How long can the Rays defy gravity?

Sure, I’ve written about this before, but what the heck, I’m so rarely right when it comes to predictions that I have to hold on to the few times when it happened.

Going into the 2008 season, as I recall, nobody thought the newly-named Tampa Bay Rays (they were the Devil Rays until 2008) had any chance at all. Why would they? The franchise had been around for 10 seasons and finished dead last in the division every season but one.*

*In 2004, they went 70-91, which put them 30½ games behind the Yankees, but still in fourth place in the American League East, ahead of the Blue Jays.

Not only did they have no history of long-term success, but they went into the year coming off the worst record in the American League and they had the lowest payroll in the league—a few million behind the A’s, Twins and Royals. Their big free-agent signings included a 39-year-old Troy Percival, a 35-year-old Cliff Floyd and a 36-year-old Brian Anderson. As an outsider—and aren’t most of us outsiders when it comes to the Tampa Bay Rays?—there didn’t seem any reason to hope.

I distinctly remember thinking that when, at spring training, I picked up a preview magazine and, over breakfast, looked through the rosters and projected starters for each team. And that’s when I came across a shocking discovery.