8 teams that need a title the most

Congratulations to the Houston Astros on their championship. One of the many, many great things about winning a World Series is that it is a culmination: All the troubles and woes that a franchise and its fans might have gone through in the years before they win a World Series stop being “painful memories” and become “compelling backstory.” Your team’s woes vanish in an instant. It all hurts, until it doesn’t.

• These are the longest World Series title droughts

Now that the Astros have given their fans a moment of peace, it makes us wonder: Who’s next? What fan bases are most in need of their moment?

To set the parameters for this exercise, we’re going to focus on teams that have gone a long time (or at least a long time as far as the fans are concerned) without winning a title and have made the postseason recently or are on the verge of doing so. Teams like the Orioles, or the Pirates, or even the Tigers -- their fans are desperate for a title, as well, but ... well, let’s get them to the playoffs first.

Here are your suffering eight:

1. Dodgers
I know it probably seems a bit ridiculous to put the Dodgers at No. 1: Didn’t they just win the World Series two years ago? Well, yes, they did, but there’s no question that the “bubble” championship is (unfairly, I’d argue) considered more fluky than any other championship. More to the point, the Dodgers have the best team in baseball, seemingly year after year, but other than the year where there were no fans in the stands to see them (other than a smattering during the Series itself, in _Texas_), they always fall short in the postseason.

The Dodgers won’t be able to keep up this run forever -- right? right? -- which means they need to get a World Series title so people will stop pestering them about it. It’s cool to be the mid-1990s Braves: You get to win every year! But the first thing people think about when they think about the mid-’90s Braves isn’t all the games they won; it’s all the postseason series they lost. The Dodgers desperately need to avoid the same fate.

2. Guardians
It’s certainly up in the air how the Guardians would have fared if they had sneaked past the Yankees and made it into the ALCS against the Astros, but if they’d made it, it would have been their first ALCS since their this close World Series season in 2016 and only their second this century. That’s a problem for as storied a franchise as Cleveland and, more to the point, for one that has gone as long as it has since it won the World Series. The drought is going to hit 75 years next year if Cleveland doesn’t win it all, if you can believe that. That’s, obviously, the longest title drought in baseball, essentially four generations of fans who have never seen their team win a World Series.

Will the Guardians ever get their Cubs/White Sox/Red Sox moment? You cannot blame their fans for beginning to wonder.

3. Brewers
The Brewers have made only one World Series (all the way back in 1982), and not only did they lose it, they lost it to a team that’s now a division rival -- St. Louis. But it’s worth noting that the current Brewers run is the best in franchise history, even with their disappointing finish to this season. And yet they’ve lost four postseason matchups in a row, beginning with that crushing seven-game NLCS loss to the Dodgers in 2018.

The Brewers have one of the most loyal fan bases in the sport, a deep and talented pitching staff and a front office -- even with David Stearns moving to an advisory role -- that has shown it knows what it’s doing. But the Brewers have still never won a World Series, one of the few teams left in baseball that hasn’t. Is their window about to close? If it does, how long will it be until it opens again?

4. Mets
The Mets had good vibes this year, really up until the last couple of weeks of the season and then the Wild Card Series loss to the Padres. They’ve now gone 36 years without a title, though new owner Steve Cohen and manager Buck Showalter have done everything they can to erase the whole LOLMets moniker. But it will never truly go away -- it will lurk ominously in the background until the Mets win a World Series.

5. Yankees
Look, no one is ever, ever going to feel bad for Yankees fans, and nor should they: No team is even within half as many total championships as they have. (If the Yankees went another 100 years without winning a World Series, they’d probably still be in first place in rings.) But there have been only two other instances of the Yankees going 13 straight seasons without so much as reaching the World Series: from the Fall Classic’s debut in 1903 until the Yankees’ first appearance in 1921, and from 1982-95. You’re starting to see the strain -- on the fan base, on the front office and even on the team itself.

How many years more can the Yankees go without a title before they stop feeling like the Yankees? We can mock Yankees fans for being spoiled all we want, but if they lose that whole Yankees thing … what sets them apart anymore?

6. Padres
Another team that hasn’t won a title. In fact, the final three teams on this list are all teams that haven’t won one. The Padres would be a little higher on this list if they hadn’t taken the first step toward a title this year by finally beating those Dodgers in the NLDS.

The Dodgers have been their longtime tormentors, and while the Padres weren’t able to follow up their NLDS victory with a trip to their third World Series, they’ve got to feel a lot more positive about their season, and their chances moving forward, right now than they did, say, the day we all learned about Fernando Tatis Jr.’s suspension. They’ll get him back early next season, and he’ll join a team that knows it can beat the Dodgers. Now the Padres just have to do it again … and then beat everybody else, too.

7. Rays
The quick playoff exit was their fourth consecutive playoff appearance after five years in the wilderness. But now that they’re making the postseason every year, they’re starting to get their own reputation for falling short in the playoffs. The Rays, like the Brewers, are in the midst of the best stretch in franchise history, but, also like with the Brewers, that won’t mean much if they never break through. Considering the Rays won 14 fewer games this year than they did last year (which was a year after they reached the World Series, no less), you have to worry they might be going backward.

8. Mariners
Congrats, Mariners! You’ve graduated from “team with the longest postseason drought in the major North American professional sports” to “No. 8 fan base most desperate for a World Series title.” That is actually progress! Of course, the Mariners hold a distinction that no other team on this list, or in all of baseball, can claim: They’ve never even made a World Series. So let’s do that first. If they lose that World Series, then they’ll know real pain.