The Tampa Bay Rays are proving that, in spite of the notion that they are “baseball's farm team”, their recent run of success in the rugged AL East is no fluke.

GM Andrew Friedman has been criticized (even by yours truly) for failing to pull off a big midseason trade during the team's 2008 and 2010 division-championship seasons. Instead, he and manager Joe Maddon felt confident in the young core they had in place. The result? 97 and 96 win seasons.

But it appeared this offseason would b...