Congratulations to the Texas Rangers on winning their first World Series championship on Wednesday night, with a 5-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 5 at Chase Field. It has been a long, often frustrating road for Rangers fans to get here, but they’ve made it, and now all that pain is gone. Flags fly forever, and that’s one that will wave permanently above Globe Life Field: 2023 World Series champion Texas Rangers. Doesn’t that just sound beautiful? It’ll never get old.

The title doesn’t just sate the decades-long thirst of Rangers fans: It provides hope for other teams like Texas, teams that heading into this season also had never won a championship. With the Rangers now off the board, there are only five teams left waiting to hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy for the first time, five fan bases still waiting for their painful memories to disappear. They might be closer than you think: After all, four of those five teams had a winning record in 2023.

• Longest World Series title droughts

Which of those five teams is most likely to end its lifelong skid first? Here’s a ranking of who might be the next Rangers, the next team to win its first World Series.

Rays
Founded: 1998
World Series appearances: 2008, '20

The Rays ended up not winning the American League East this season and bowed out of the postseason earlier than anyone expected, but let’s not forget that we all spent the first two months of this season wondering whether this was the best Rays team of all time. Tampa Bay will surely look a little different next year -- and there are all sorts of questions about the roster for 2024 that are still up in the air -- but this is still a team that has made the playoffs five consecutive seasons and is well-positioned to do so for many years to come. The Rays always seem to find a way in the regular season, and if you do that often enough, if you keep giving yourself bites of the apple, eventually, one of these days, you’re going to break through and win the big one. Next year is as good a bet as any.

• Longest stretches between WS appearances

Brewers
Founded: 1969*
World Series appearances: 1982

Speaking of teams on playoff runs, the Brewers have reached the postseason five of the past six years, particularly impressive for a franchise that had only seen October baseball four times in its entire history before 2018. Milwaukee has had even less postseason success the past few years than Tampa Bay has, reaching the National League Championship Series in ‘18, but losing every series it has played since (including being swept in the Wild Card Series by Arizona this year).

Even with some of the front-office turnover in recent years, this is an organization built on a steady foundation, one now well-known for its pitching, its defense and … well, more pitching. (Though there is offense coming: This is the No. 3 farm system in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline, and many of the top prospects are hitters -- including outfielder Jackson Chourio, the No. 2 overall prospect in the game.) The Brewers have benefitted the past few years from the relative weakness of the NL Central, but there are clear signs that’s changing, particularly with the Reds’ emergence and the young talent on the Pirates and Cubs. (And the Cardinals aren’t going anywhere, either.) But the surprising thing about the Brewers’ postseason struggles is that they would seem to be built for a playoff series. One of these years, all that pitching depth has to pay off, right?

* The Brewers played one year in Seattle before moving to Milwaukee for the 1970 season.

Mariners 
Founded: 1977 
World Series appearances: None

The Mariners finally ended their 21-year postseason drought in 2022, but they fell just short in ‘23. Not only that, but they had to watch their division rivals in Texas take themselves off this list as well. But those frustrations and steps back shouldn’t get it twisted: Seattle is still extremely well set up for the future. Its farm system has fallen a bit in rankings, but that’s only because so many of those prospects have graduated.

The Mariners’ lineup and rotation are both stacked with players under the age of 30, including a transcendent, ever-improving superstar in Julio Rodríguez, who represents a new era of Seattle baseball all by himself. If the Mariners do end up reaching that first World Series, he’s going to be the guy who leads them there.

Padres
Founded: 1969
World Series appearances: 1984, '98

Heading into the 2021 season, with the Padres loading up on talent -- and that was before they traded for Juan Soto -- and leading the league in home-field vibes, this looked like a team that was poised to go on a years-long run. San Diego’s win over Los Angeles in the ‘22 NLDS primed the pump even more. And then ‘23 happened. Call it bad luck, call it unfortunate sequencing, call it lack of “clutch,” call it what you will, but the Padres just kept finding ways to lose, ultimately costing them a playoff spot that they seemed destined for. (Worse: The playoff spot went to the division-rival D-backs, who then used it to launch themselves into the World Series.)

It was the worst possible time for the Padres to have a disappointing year. Manager Bob Melvin has now left to join another division rival in the Giants, their ace and presumed NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell is about to become a free agent, and Soto is a year away from hitting the market himself … and there are rumors he could even be traded before that. San Diego still has a lot of stars, and it’ll still be a team you have to keep a constant eye on. But the Padres felt closer to a World Series a year ago.

Rockies 
Founded: 1993 
World Series appearances: 2007

The Rockies lost 103 games in 2023, which was the first 100-loss season in franchise history. As the Rangers and D-backs just proved by going from 100-plus losses to the World Series in two seasons, Colorado might not be as far off as it appears. That said, the Rockies have four highly motivated teams in their division, including one that won the World Series three years ago (Dodgers) and another that just reached one (D-backs), and of the five teams that have never won it all, they feel a step behind.