I wanted to get the latest list of Major League Baseball franchise rankings done before the start of the 2015 season, but obviously that didn’t happen. But that’s OK, right?

Last year I split the list into two posts ranking the best and worst teams in MLB history, but in keeping with the other sports lists I maintain I’m putting all 30 active franchises in one place. So with that  out of the way, here are how the rankings are compiled:

The Criteria

The categories and point values are as follows:

• 20 points for a World Series title. Pre-1903 titles are not counted.
• 15 points for a league pennant.
• 6 points for a playoff series win (e.g. Division Series or Wild Card Game).
• 4 points for a division title.
• 3 points for a regular season winning percentage of .556 or higher, -3 points for a percentage of .444 or lower.
• 1 point for a winning season, -1 point for a losing season.
• Consecutive winning regular seasons are worth 2 points starting with the second, 3 points for the third, 4 points for the fourth, and so on. The counter is reset after any non-winning season. So if a team has three winning seasons in a row, they get a total of 5 points.
• A multiplier is included, which is based on a franchise’s all-time regular-season winning percentage.

Here we go with this year’s updated rankings. Previous year ranks are in parentheses.

The Top 10

#1. New York Yankees (#1) — 23.45 avg.

#2. San Francisco Giants (#2) — 8.67 avg.

#3. Boston Red Sox (#3) — 7.75 avg.

#4. St. Louis Cardinals (#4) — 7.69 avg.

#5. Los Angeles Dodgers (#5) — 7.23 avg.

#6. Oakland Athletics (#7) — 5.73 avg.

#7. Atlanta Braves (#6) — 5.72 avg.

#8. Detroit Tigers (#9) — 4.93 avg.

#9. Pittsburgh Pirates (#10) — 4.75 avg.

#10. Arizona Diamondbacks (#8) — 5.44 avg.

Not much movement in this group except toward the bottom. The Diamondbacks continue their tumble toward the middle 10, having lost more than half a point from their all-time franchise average from 2013. In fact Arizona is just one of two teams to drop more than one spot this year, the other being Philadelphia.

The World Series champion Giants boosted their average by a league-best .35 points in 2014 but aren’t even within reach of the Yankees. Let’s just say that I don’t see NY relinquishing the top spot during my lifetime.

The Mediocre 10

#11. Chicago Cubs (#11) — 4.64 avg.

#12. Toronto Blue Jays (#12) — 4.20 avg.

#13. Chicago White Sox (#13) — 3.83 avg.

#14. Cincinnati Reds (#14) — 3.64 avg.

#15. Cleveland Indians (#15) — 3.39 avg.

#16. New York Mets (#16) — 2.944 avg.

#17. Baltimore Orioles (#17) — 2.938 avg.

#18. Kansas City Royals (#23) — 2.24 avg.

#19. Miami Marlins (#18) — 2.09 avg.

#20. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (#20) — 2.05 avg.

The big shakeup here is from the Royals, who rode a Cinderella season all the way to an American League pennant and rose five spots in this list as a result. Taking their place in the bottom-feeder section are the aforementioned Phillies.

The Bottom 10

#21. Philadelphia Phillies (#19) — 2.03 avg.

#22. Houston Astros (#21) — 1.63 avg.

#23. Minnesota Twins (#22) — 1.58 avg.

#24. Tampa Bay Rays (#24) — 0.95 avg.

#25. Texas Rangers (#25) — 0.61 avg.

#26. Milwaukee Brewers (#26) — 0.40 avg.

#27. Washington Nationals (#27) — -0.0268 avg.

#28. San Diego Padres (#28) — -0.0270 avg.

#29. Colorado Rockies (#29) — -0.25 avg.

#30. Seattle Mariners (#30) — -0.57 avg.

The poor didn’t get a whole lot poorer this year, but neither did they get much better except for Kansas City. Both the Astros and Twins dropped one spot, while the Rays, Rangers, Brewers, Nats, Padres, Rockies, and Mariners stayed right where they were last season.

I guess there’s something to be said for consistency at least.

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