(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
In the midst of the All-Star Break and with the MLB trade deadline fast approaching, baseball fans are given time to look back at the first half of the season.
At this point, we can all begin to reasonably determine which teams are in contention for the playoffs and may have a shot at a World Series title.
But on the other hand, we can also weed out the teams that have stumbled their way through the season and will have better luck stockpiling and reloading for the years ahead.
While high-payroll teams like the Yankees and Red Sox tend to be in the playoff hunt year in and year out, a substantial number of teams fall into the latter category.
In some cases, certain teams have been in rebuilding mode for the greater part of the decade, having been unable to crack a winning record season after season. It may seem hard to believe, but there are currently five MLB franchises that have not finished with a winning record in the past five seasons.
What I will try to do is examine each of these teams and review what got them to where they are today. But I will also offer reasons to hope that these five franchises can not only do better in the win column, but maybe even make the playoffs someday as well.
Case No. 1: The Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos
Last Year at .500 or Better: 2003
At the moment, the Nationals are the laughingstock of MLB, with a league-worst 26-61 record entering the All-Star Break. Although this is a historic low for the franchise, things weren't really much better before this year, seeing as the last time that the Nationals finished above .500, the team was playing north of the border.
In hindsight, it's pretty surprising that the Expos even finished above .500 in 2003. At the time, the team was owned by the league and was effectively forced out of the wild card race because ownership could not afford to call up top minor league players for their expanded September roster.
Futility on the field and shamefully low attendance (crowds at Montreal's Olympic Stadium averaged around 10,000 a game in the Expos' final years) forced the franchise to move to Washington, where the on-field product has been no better, due in large part to inept front office management.
High-priced players like Vladimir Guerrero, Javier Vazquez, and Livan Hernandez were unloaded years ago in widespread salary dumps, and rebuilding efforts haven't yielded many results thus far.
Deposed GM Jim Bowden acquired a glut of outfielders, causing a logjam of unproven, inexperienced players. The organization has not produced a quality group of pitchers either.
Things may seem bleak for the Nationals right now, but there is reason to believe that they can turn things around (at some point).
They have found a young star in Ryan Zimmerman to try to build around, they play in a gorgeous (albeit fairly empty) new ballpark, and the new management has made some good moves, including the acquisition of Nyjer Morgan from the Pittsburgh Pirates (we'll get to that later).
All in all, though, don't expect to see much from the Nationals in the next few years, at the very least.
Projected Year When They Get Over the Hump: 2014
Case No. 2: The Kansas City Royals
Last Year at .500 or Better: 2003
It's pretty hard to believe that a little more than 20 years ago, the Royals won the World Series. The figure above may be a little misleading because the Royals' decline began long before 2003, a season in which the team drastically overachieved to reach an 83-79 mark.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Royals have been plagued by something that a lot of small-market teams have to deal with: not being able to sign and hold on to top players who would command high salaries in free agency.
Rather than paying All-Stars like Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye, Carlos Beltran, and David Cone, the Royals traded away these players for prospects before inevitably losing them to higher-payroll teams in free agency.
Some may point to the decline of the organization having been a byproduct of unsteady ownership since the death of Ewing Kauffman in 1993. Like many other teams highlighted in this article, consistency has been hard to achieve, as GMs and managers seem to stay no longer than a few years.
Despite being in fourth place in the AL Central at the All-Star Break, the Royals have given their fans some signs of hope for their future. They finished the 2008 season at 75-87, the Royals' best mark since 2003.
This year, they have seen their ace, Zack Greinke, mature into one of baseball's best pitchers. With a 10-5 record and a 2.12 ERA, he is one of the leading candidates for the AL Cy Young.
Joakim Soria has become one of the better closers in baseball, and even though his first stint in the major leagues wasn't very productive, third baseman Alex Gordon still has the potential to become a superstar.
Projected Year When They Get Over the Hump: 2011
Case No. 3: The Cincinnati Reds
Last Year at .500 or Better: 2000
The franchise known most fondly for their dominating run through the 1970s, with a superstar-laden cast and one of baseball's most famous monikers, the Big Red Machine, has fallen on hard times this decade.
The organization had a pretty good run through the 1990s, highlighted by the team's surprising run to the 1990 World Series title.
At the end of the decade, owner and self-professed Hitler apologist Marge Schott sold her stake of the team, and 1999 NL Manager of the Year Jack McKeon was fired after the Reds finished the 2000 season with an 85-77 record, the team's last season in which they finished over .500.
The Reds invested a lot of money at the beginning of the decade in high-priced players like Ken Griffey, Jr. and also gave lucrative extensions to Barry Larkin, Sean Casey, and Danny Graves. The team did this in large part to compensate for Schott's refusal to invest in the Reds' farm system, leaving the team very thin in talent.
With Griffey's numerous and extended stays on the disabled list, Larkin's retirement, and Casey's departure, the Reds chose to focus on building the team around a young nucleus of Adam Dunn, Ryan Freel, and Aaron Harang.
While the three of them (especially Dunn) have had relatively successful careers thus far, none of them was the kind of player that a championship club is built around.
Dunn has since been traded away, as were Griffey and Freel, with the once promising prospect of success for the Reds having dwindled in the wake of an eight-year string of losing seasons.
Under manager Dusty Baker, the Reds have now become a significantly younger team, with the help of a deep farm system that is widely regarded as being one of the best in baseball.
The building efforts are now predicated upon young arms Edinson Volquez and Johnny Cueto, as well as a slew of talented young position players, like first baseman Joey Votto, second baseman Brandon Phillips, and outfielders Jay Bruce and Chris Dickerson.
Right now, the Reds are a shade below .500 at 42-45, but they are in an NL Central without a dominant team, and their young nucleus will only continue to develop. Of the teams in this article, it looks like Cincinnati is the closest to achieving a winning record.
Projected Year When They Get Over the Hump: 2010
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