Is there a more anonymous team in the majors? Is there a more unlikely team to be leading its division? Why can’t other teams do what this team has done?

This team is the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Yankees and the Red Sox should be embarrassed playing in the same division with them.

The Rays entered Saturday’s schedule leading the Yankees in the American League East by half a game. The Rays were 6 games ahead of the Red Sox, last year’s World Series champions.

These following figures are mind boggling. According to the Associated Press’ Ron Blum, who in my opinion is the most reliable calculator of Major League Baseball payrolls, the Red Sox began the season with the largest payroll, $221.6 and the Yankees were third at $207.2 million. Where were the Rays? They had a $60.6 million payroll, the only one below $71 million and $30 million below No. 26 Oakland.

If I listed the Rays’ starting lineup but didn’t label it as such, I wonder how many people could identify the team. Without making a game of it, this is the starting lineup:

• C        Mike Zunino
• 1B      Ji-Man Choi
• 2B      Brandon Lowe
• SS      Willy Adames
• 3B      Yandy Diaz
• LF       Tommy Pham
• CF      Kevin Kiermaier
• RF      Austin Meadows
• DH      Avisail Garcia
• Starting Pitchers:     Blake Snell, Charlie Morton, Ryan Yarbrough, Tyler Glasnow, Ryne Stanek, Yonny Chirinos

Now let’s see how the Rays gained these impressive anonymous players:

Zunino was acquired in a trade with Seattle last Nov. 8. Choi, a South Korean, was obtained in a trade with Milwaukee a year ago. Pham was acquired from St. Louis in a deadline-day trade last July. In the Rays’ most significant trade that day, they acquired outfielder Meadows, who has been among the American League’s leading hitters all season.

Another player obtained in a trade in the past year was Diaz from Cleveland in a three-team trade. Holdovers from previous transactions were Kiermaier, who may be the best defensive outfielder in baseball; Lowe, Adames and Garcia.

Among the starting pitchers, Snell, last year’s American League Cy Young award winner, was a first-round draft selection in 2011, Charlie Morton signed as a free agent last December, Stanek was a first-round draft pick in 2013, Glasnow was in the Chris Archer trade with Meadows, Yarbrough was in a trade with Seattle and Chirinos was a Venezuelan free agent.

As someone who has covered and written about baseball his entire adult life, I should be prepared for whatever nonsense that develops. Sometimes, though, even the nonsense gets to be too bizarre.

That said, I want to say that I respect and even admire what the Rays have accomplished. They are playing in a terrible park in an awful location. And they are expected to compete with the Yankees and the Red Sox as well as the Orioles and Blue Jays.

Stuart Sternberg and his partners and associates can be forgiven up to a point, but they cannot be forgiven for their stupidity and ignorance.

Ten years ago this month – 10 years ago – Sternberg and his associates decided they weren’t going to talk to me because I had written something awful about one of them. I was writing a column about the Rays’ treatment of two young players, Evan Longoria and David Price.

As with some other good young players, I accused the Rays of depriving Longoria and Price of the service time they deserved.

In the course of writing that column, I tried to reach the Rays’ then general manager, Andrew Friedman, for comment. It was the appropriate step to take. It was a step I learned to take from my earliest days in the business. Readers, I learned, had a right to know if reporters solicited comment and what, if anything, the subject had to say.

So I followed proper procedure, tried contacting Friedman and when he didn’t respond to my request for comment, I wrote he did not respond. I might as well have accused Friedman of murder and mayhem.

Rick Vaughn, who was but no longer is the public relations man for the Rays, went absolutely bonkers, screaming at me for all to hear.

I hadn’t thought about the incident for years, but the memory returned. I would have hoped that the Rays had grown up in 10 years, but no response was forthcoming over the course of several days from Stuart Sternberg, the Rays’ principal owner; Matthew Silverman, the president, or Chaim Bloom, senior vice president for baseball operations.

Friedman is no longer with the Rays. He is the president of baseball operations for the Dodgers.