Red Sox Diaries

Tampa Bay's turnaround last season was nothing short of remarkable. After 10 years of futility, the Rays had just about everything go right--many of the talented prospects they had been stockpiling for years matured at the same time, some lesser-known players had breakout years, and the team withstood injuries to stars like Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford (among others) to win 97 games and the AL East division crown. Their good fortune and stellar play continued through the first two rounds of the playoffs (including staving off a furious comeback charge by the Red Sox and regrouping to win Game 7), but they faltered in the World Series and lost to the Phillies in five games.

Even though Tampa came up just short in the end, it was a season to be proud of. This year, many fans and experts are wondering if the Rays are capable of sealing the deal.

Historical Analysis

From 2007 to 2008, Tampa Bay upped its victory total by 31. That's the second-best margin in the last 40 years. But how do teams that improve so drastically usually fare the next season? To answer that question, I crunched the numbers of other clubs since 1969 that won at least 20 more games than they did the season before and calculated how much of their newfound success carried over into the following year.

A couple of things about this study surprised me. First of all, there were 40 teams in all that fit the criteria--about twice as many as I expected. That means, on average, one team each year experiences a 20-win boost in the wins column. And that is excluding jumps involving the strike-shortened seasons of 1972, 1981, 1994 and 1995. I also found it interesting that the '03 Marlins, '07 Rockies and '07 Indians did not qualify. I think the '08 Rays bore at least some resemblance to all three of those teams (in addition to the '06 Tigers, who are on the list). By the way, each of the four squads regressed the next season.

Anyway, out of the initial 40 teams, I had to exclude five from my statistics. The '71 Royals, '80 Athletics, '93 Phillies and '93 Giants were all affected by one of the strike seasons for their year after the leap season (for what it's worth, only the A's had a higher winning percentage in Season 3), and of course the '08 Rays are incomplete because we need to see how this year plays out.

That leaves us with 35 squads to look at. Their average number of wins the season before their vast improvement was 67.1, followed by a jump year of 90.6 wins. The following season, on average, yielded only 82.2 victories--a drop of almost 8.5. Just eight of the 35 teams had a better record in the third year than the second, and only seven made the playoffs (eight if you count the Athletics team I disregarded earlier, because the playoffs still took place in 1981 and they won their division in both halves of the season). Yes, I know that they didn't have the Wild Card until 1995, meaning fewer teams made the playoffs, though only the '79 Brewers and '85 Mets were really affected (both won at least 95 games). But the '05 Padres finished first in their division with 82 wins, so let's call it even. Three teams even won fewer contests in the third season than they did in the first, and the '89 A's were the only team to win the World Series.

Still with me? Great. The next thing I did was restrict the study to include just the teams that won 25 or more games in the second season than they did in the first. There were 12 remaining teams from the previous total of 35, and the results were pretty similar: the average decrease from the second year to the third was about 9.5 wins, one higher than the larger group. But merely one of those clubs (the '92 Braves) made the postseason in the season after the big jump.

THEN, I looked only at the teams in the first batch who won at least 95 games in that second year. Twelve teams also fit this criteria, and they experienced the biggest fall of the three groups: from an average of 99.8 wins in Year 2 to 88.1 in Year 3. This might be the best data set to use when trying to predict what the Rays will do this year, because some of the teams in the first group we observed had a losing record even in the leap season (like the '04 Tigers after their historically bad 119-loss campaign and the '70 Expos following their first year in the league). All the teams in this final set were excellent teams during the middle season. Four of them (one out of every three) made the playoffs in the third year.

Implications for the '09 Rays

Ok, take a deep breath and process the last section. What do all of those numbers mean? Well, they suggest Rays' odds of returning to the postseason aren't good. Of course, there are all sorts of mitigating factors that factored into the above findings: injuries, key players lost, etc. The Rays figure to be healthier this year and might be even more talented when you consider that they will almost undoubtedly have the services of David Price for longer than they did in '08. But Tampa also got career years out of unheralded guys in the bullpen, such as Grant Balfour and JP Howell. It's highly unlikely they can duplicate those seasons. As I mentioned earlier, this team is very similar to the Tigers of a few years back that went to the World Series in '06 and missed the playoffs in '07.

The Rays have incredibly bright prospects for the next decade or so, if they can hold on to all of their young up-and-comers. But looking solely at the 2009 season? History suggests they'll take a step back, which is great news for the Red Sox.

--Danny Daly (ddaly06)