ESPN released their 2016 Ultimate Standings just over a week agot, ranking all 122 major professional sports franchises (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) against each other. As you could imagine, several MLB teams were are the top of those rankings - but they also had some of the worst franchises. According to those rankings, here are the five best and five worst franchises in the MLB:
FIVE BEST FRANCHISES
5) San Francisco Giants
ESPN: "It's good to be Giant. Everything fans hate on the other side of the bay is up on the foggy side: Ownership, players and the stadium are top notch, and the team finds itself playing meaningful baseball into September practically every year."
4) St. Louis Cardinals
ESPN: "The Cardinal Way is still going strong, even if there are signs of transition on the horizon. The 2016 team wasn't as competitive as in seasons past, but it had a shot to reach the postseason for a sixth straight year. In part because of the team's surprising 35-43 home record, attendance near the end of the season sagged a bit, but the Cards easily cracked the 3 million mark once again. It's good to be a Cardinals fan, when even a down year means a top-20 ranking."
3) Baltimore Orioles
ESPN: "How 'bout 'dem O's, hon? After peaking last year with their highest overall number in Ultimate Standings history, the Birds soared even higher this time around. They cracked our top 20 for the first time and outranked every MLB team that didn't win a World Series last year or have a name that rhymes with Schmexas Schmangers."
2) Texas Rangers
ESPN: "A new menu item at Globe Life Park this season is The Wicked Pig, a $27 sandwich that puts pulled pork, bacon, prosciutto, ham and BBQ sauce between sweet Hawaiian rolls with sides of pork rinds and coleslaw. It's huge -- just like the Rangers' 42-point improvement in our overall standings, the best of any MLB team. After two seasons languishing in the middle of the pack, the Rangers are a top-20 Ultimate Standings franchise for the fourth time in six years."
1) Kansas City Royals
ESPN: "The Royals had the second-biggest leap in last year's Ultimate Standings, and now, after winning the World Series last fall, they climb into the top 10 as the highest-ranked MLB team. Key injuries to Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon's bad year wrecked the team's playoff hopes, but Kansas City remained baseball-crazy, with the highest local TV ratings in the sport."
FIVE WORST FRANCHISES
26) Chicago White Sox
ESPN: "This spring, a baseball team in Chicago steamrolled through April and early May, winning at a .697 clip through game No. 33 on the backs of a gleaming sub-3.00 team ERA and a .300-plus OBP. And that team was not the Cubs! OK, it was. But it was also the White Sox, who played like world-beaters for the first five weeks of the season, only to let the world dole out beatings at their expense for the final 21. The Sox finished the year under .500 for the fourth straight time, then said goodbye to Robin Ventura, their all-time best third baseman-turned-beleaguered manager. It was ... not a winning formula in the AL Central (11 games out of the wild card) or the Ultimate Standings. The Sox rank No. 96 overall, the team's lowest ranking since 2004."
27) New York Yankees
ESPN: "The Yankees think of themselves as the greatest franchise in all sports, so their barely making the top 100 goes against corporate culture. (Of course, they've also played a grand total of one playoff game since 2012, so this ranking could be even worse.) This offseason, New York finds itself in a transition period, with Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira joining the likes of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera on the sideline and making way for the next generation of Yankees, led by catcher Gary Sanchez."
28) Atlanta Braves
ESPN: "The Braves dropped 22 spots in these rankings, which is not surprising for the team spent most of 2016 hovering around "worst in baseball" status. But despite a disappointing season (and this triple-digit ranking), there are positive signs upon which to build as management ends the "tear down" phase and enters a transitional period."
29) San Diego Padres
ESPN: "The Padres were shut out by the Dodgers 15-0 on Opening Day, and it was all downhill from there. They were never seriously competitive in the NL West and were a nonfactor in our standings as well, finishing with their worst overall mark in five seasons and a string of triple-digit category rankings. If not for pristine Petco Park, things would have been even worse."
30) Oakland Athletics
ESPN: "Is this the worst franchise in baseball, as the voters felt? It's easy to see the bad when the '60s-era stadium is on blast practically daily in the media. Then the team is just five wins from the worst record in baseball. But there's some good news in there somewhere."