How come young teams like the Cubbies and Astros went from sucking ass to immediately going deep and winning rings? But the Jays have to go through this first?
To be fair the Cubs didn’t win a championship in 100+ years and went 60 years making the playoffs 4 times.
Cubs lost in the NLCS in 2015 and won the WS in 2016. Since the WS win they won 4 more playoff games. So they won in year 2 of their window and did nothing much after that.
Houston made the playoffs in 2015 for the first time. They were up 2-1 in the series and in game 4 they scored 3 runs in the bottom up the 7th to go up 6-3. There pen needs 6 outs to advance to the ALCS but after a costly error in the 8th and 2 runs in the 9th, KC scores 6 unanswered runs to win 9-6. Houston loses in game 5 and KC advances to face the Jays in the 2015 ALCS.
Houston misses the playoffs in 2016 and then cheats to win in 2017. So not smooth sailing.
Cubs won in year 2 of their window. Houston won in year 3 of theirs. And the Jays will be entering their 3rd year.
Lot of teams have had heartache;
-Minnesota has made the playoffs 6 times in the last 17 years and lost all of the games they played; 0-15
-Cleveland made the playoffs once in 46 years. And recently after their WS run in 2016, they lost 3 times in the first round. Wasn’t until this year (arguably year 7 of their “window” or possibly a new window entirely they win a round.
-White Sox have made the playoffs 3 times since 2005 and lost in the first round in all of them winning only 3 games and missed the playoffs this year after starting year 1 of a window.
-Rangers made the playoffs 5 times in 20 years. They lost 2 WS (one being in epic fashion that they had in the bag if Nelson Cruz makes the final out). Lost a WC game. Then lost in the bat flip game and got swept by Toronto the following year. That’s heartache too.
-Oakland made the playoffs 6 times in the last 15 years and got bounced in the first round each time. Last 4 appearances they won 1 game.
-Seattle just ended a 20 year drought
-Angels made the playoffs once in the last 10 years with Trout and got swept
-Baltimore made the playoffs 3 times in 24 years. They had a good run in 2014 getting swept in the ALCS and lost in the first round in all the other opportunities
-Yankees last WS was 2009. 2010s is the first decade they didn’t win a WS.
-In their 24 year existence, Tampa lost 2 WS and was bounced in the first round the other 6 times.
-Detroit made the playoffs 5 times in 34 years. Losing in 2 WS. The worst is their last appearance in 2014. They lost in the first round to Baltimore, getting swept when your starters were; Justin Verlander, David Price and Max Scherzer.
Basically in the last 10 years only the Astros and Red Sox had grey sustained success in the AL. And both teams cheated to win their WS; Houston in 2017 and Boston in 2018. And in their other WS years, Boston had many known steroid users. Same goes for the Yankees.
The AL probably didn’t have a legit non cheater WS winner in 10* years.
If you include non WS winners, Tampa and Yankees could be included.