devil rays are tampa bay’s best pro team ever tommy’s an idiot
Update Monday 23 July 2007 at noon: I’m an idiot. The calculations for the Lightning are wrong. I calculated them on the original post incorrectly (not John). That means the Lightning have a better win percentage than the Devil Rays. Therefore, the title of this post is a lie, and the entire effort was a waste of your time.
From John’s post about Tampa Bay sports teams:
the Bucs are 193-304-1 (.388) in the team’s 30 year history, the Lightning are 415-553-113-38
(.384)(.413) in 14 seasons, and the Devil Rays are 615-932 (.398) in 9+ seasons.
Did you see that the Devil Rays have the best record there?? So of the four major sports leagues, the Devil Rays are Tampa Bay’s best pro team ever.
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July 19th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Don’t forget the Mutiny.
I don’t think we should include the “Thunderdawgs” though :p
July 19th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Aunt Chris would know about the Rowdies for sure, but I think they had a better record than at least two of them.
July 19th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
In 3 seasons the Bandits were 35-19 (.648) and 0-2 in playoffs. Rowdies were 147-135 after 10 seasons.
July 19th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
But that of course neglects that the Bucs appeared in the playoffs THRICE during their first 10 years. And the Bolts once. While the “bestest” Devil Rays have yet to break .500 for a season.
Or how about the ~10 years the Devil Rays have been around (starting in 1998)… Bucs are .534 (77-67) with 5 playoff appearances and a Super Bowl trophy. While the Bolts don’t fare much better in the regular season at .373 (275 wins in 738 games*) but they do have 4 playoff appearances and a Stanley Cup to show for those efforts.
While I am aware that the intent of this post was satire, I wanted to point out that the Rays are one of the most pathetic excuses for a “professional” sports team to ever walk this Earth. I could go on… and probably will over at my blog over the weekend.
*Not sure I got that right..
July 19th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
In the Rays’ defense, it’s far easier to move from “bad” to “good” in the NFL, for a number of reasons:
1. Draft picks show immediate impact, as opposed to being a crapshoot like in major league baseball.
While top NFL picks occasionally fizzle out, there’s nothing at all like the Hamilton and Brazelton disasters that happened to the rays. Furthermore, the NFL schedules its worst teams to play each other in out-of-conference play, whereas MLB has the same in-league schedule from year to year. The NFL salary cap also ensures a more equitable distribution of talent, as opposed to MLB where the richest teams lock up the best players.
July 20th, 2007 at 7:44 am
I thought I had heard (at least during the Nimoli years) that he Rays were one of the most profitable teams in MLB. Tampa/St. Pete is hardly a “poor market”. We’re something like the 12th or 13th largest MSA in the country.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:19 am
The Rowdies had an over all record both NASl and APSL of 228 wins & 175 losses. The Mutiny had an over all record of 83 wins, 98 losses and 6 ties.
I think the Rowdies have a very good if not the best winning percentage of the professional teams in the St. Pete/Tampa Area.
July 20th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
TB isn’t a poor market but the dollar is stretched when it comes to disposable income. We don’t have much of it. Money is spent heavily on transportation, insurance, taxes, etc… By the time we get to left overs… eh…
as for the Lightning not faring better the last 10 years — the last 10 years have seen the Bolts fall to the lowest levels of NHL kind (1997-2002). The repeated fifty loss seasons contribute to that low win percentage and really can’t be excused though… But there first five seasons…?
One more thing about the Rays being a profitable team - remember they are also seeing monies from Revenue Sharing. The Naimoli years were mostly like this — Vince regrouped personal losses instead of re-investing into the team. Every level of the Rays organization was done on a bottom-dollar, skinflint basis and I heard from players families about bounced checks and other financial problems with services and employees not getting paid on time.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:49 am
I think the Devil Rays are becoming a Football or Basketball Team - with a score of 21 - 4 in the weekend game against the Yankees, it sure doesnt look like baseball. They sure need to get a defense.
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:39 pm
[...] Tommy’s post referencing those incorrect calculations: devil rays are tampa bay’s best pro team ever tommy’s an idiot [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
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