The Rays Franchise Deep Three

Finally we've reached the end of this series (for now, at least). The last franchise on the board is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who've spent about two thirds of their existence as a laughingstock and the other third as the ultimate "do the most with the least" franchise. How does it shake out?

	P	C	1B	2B	3B	SS	LF	CF	RF
1st	David Price	Toby Hall	Carlos Pena	Ben Zobrist	Evan Longoria	Julio Lugo	Carl Crawford	Melvin Upton	Matt Joyce
2nd	James Shields	Dioner Navarro	Fred McGriff	Logan Forsythe	Aubrey Huff	Jason Bartlett	Desmond Jennings	Rocco Baldelli	Ben Grieve
3rd	Scott Kazmir	John Flaherty	Travis Lee	Miguel Cairo	Jared Sandberg	Kevin Stocker	Greg Vaughn	Randy Winn	Dave Martinez

So...that 3rd Team is brutal. What do you expect from a franchise with such a short and usually bad history? Center field was fairly strong though, and once Kevin Kiermaier gets another year under his belt, he'll probably at least make it to the 2nd Team. Catcher was definitely the weakest position here. No offense to Toby Hall, but he wouldn't even crack the 6th Team for some franchises.

I'm hoping to recompile these in perhaps about five years, if I'm still doing this blog then. Certainly some players will have moved up or down on the lists, and even some players yet to debut will probably be there for a few of them. For now though, enjoy the 2015-16 rankings in all their up-to-date comprehensiveness.

The Diamondbacks Franchise Deep Three

Down to the two 1998 expansion franchises, both of which I plan to put up this month. Let's start with the one that's won a World Series, the Arizona Diamondbacks:

	P	C	1B	2B	3B	SS	LF	CF	RF
1st	Randy Johnson	Miguel Montero	Paul Goldschmidt	Orlando Hudson	Matt Williams	Stephen Drew	Luis Gonzalez	Chris Young	Justin Upton
2nd	Curt Schilling	Damian Miller	Mark Grace	Aaron Hill	Mark Reynolds	Tony Womack	Gerardo Parra	Steve Finley	Danny Bautista
3rd	Brandon Webb	Chris Snyder	Travis Lee	Jay Bell	Jake Lamb	Alex Cintron	Eric Byrnes	A.J. Pollock	David Dellucci

If you thought the 1993 teams had some slim pickings, how much more so teams with five fewer seasons! Right field and shortstop are both virtual wastelands after the top spots, and catcher, first base, and left field aren't all that hot either.

Second base surprised me. If we'd done a 4th Team, Junior Spivey could've been a solid choice. I wasn't expecting Orlando Hudson to claim the 1st Team spot, but it was hard to argue with his three strong seasons in the desert.

Center field is another good position. A.J. Pollock is currently on the 3rd Team, but with a few more good years, he could find himself on that 1st Team pretty quickly.

The best of all though, was pitcher. The 1st Teamer is in the Hall of Fame, the 2nd Teamer probably will be someday (deservingly), and the 3rd Teamer had the potential before an injury suddenly ended his career. After that, well...let's just say that a 4th Team would've diminished the impressiveness ratio.