Tampa Bay Devil Rays

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are an organization that plays within Major League Baseball. They are based out of Tampa Bay, Florida and have been in the American League of MLB since 1998. They are commonly and colloquially referred to as the D-Rays and the Rays at times and play at Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay. Their home uniforms are white with dark green trim and their road uniform is either primarily grey or alternatively can either be grey with dark green trim or dark green tops with white bottoms.

Current Season

Currently, the season that they are playing in right now has not been particularly kind towards the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, as is something to be expected considering their poor performance each year ever since coming into the league. They are currently 42 wins and 67 losses in this season, for a very dismal winning record of .376. They are 5th in the eastern division of the American League and just like most of the years of their existence, they are expected to finish 5th when all is said and done. Fifth might sound like a good finish, but don’t be fooled; it is last place in the American League East.

History

The history of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as an organization starts in 1995, which happens to be the year when the contract for a franchise was initially awarded to the city of Tampa Bay. It is important to be aware of that, simply because most people think of the history as starting with the first season in 1998 when in fact that is not true at all. There were a number of influential people within MLB involved in getting a franchise for Tampa Bay, simply because they felt that an expansion to that particular city would definitely benefit the league as a whole.

Heading the primary day to day operations of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays was a man named Chuck LaMar. LaMar should probably be familiar to baseball fans as he was the famous assistant general manager of the Atlanta Braves previously and the D-Rays hired him to be both the VP of baseball operations as well as their lead general manager. He was primarily responsible for the drafting of the 35 players that Tampa Bay got through the expansion draft, as well as the adding of baseball superstars such as Wade Boggs and Fred McGriff before the start of their first season in 1998.

In spite of the star power, the Devil Rays went 63-99 in their first season, finishing dead last in the East. This started a decade of mediocrity for the franchise and to this date they have yet to finish with a record above .500 in terms of wins vs. losses. The closest they came was in 2004 when they finished 70-91; incidentally that was also the only year that they managed to climb out of the cellar for a 4th place finish in the AL East instead of their normal 5th place.