Building the 1999 Diamondbacks

It’s tough being an expansion team.

Your roster is full of castoffs from other franchises. You haven’t been around long enough to develop your own young players. You’ve got no winning tradition that might attract veterans, and no trade assets other teams might want. That first year, and most of the few years that follow, are set up to be a long slog up from the bottom.

And that’s proven to be the case in the major leagues over and over again, right from the first modern year of expansion in 1961.

• 1961 Washington Senators: The American League added two new franchises this year. The Senators were one of them, a brand new team but with the same name as the old franchise that had just left for Minnesota. They finished dead last with a record of 61-100.

• 1961 Los Angeles Angels: They fared better, and the presence of the Senators guaranteed that they wouldn’t finish in last. Even so, they were 70-91 and 8th in the 10-team American League.

• 1962 New York Mets: A year later it was the National League’s turn to expand by two. One of these was the Mets, who finished last with a record of 40-120 and set the record for the most single-season losses in history. That record stood until last year’s White Sox finally broke it.

• 1962 Houston Colt .45s: Like the Angels, the Colt .45s were locked out of last place by the presence of another expansion team (and the woeful Cubs, still mired in their silly “College of Coaches” years). They finished 8th with a record of 64-96.