ESPN ranked all 122 pro sports teams. How did the Indians, Browns, and Cavs do?

ESPN (like me), loves to rank things. Some things lend themselves to being ranked more readily than others though, and I'm not entirely sure attempting to rank all 122 franchises from MLB, and the NFL, NBA, and NHL is very easy to do. I mean, it's plenty easy to do, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to do it well.

You can find the complete rankings, along with the convoluted and somewhat random criteria ESPN used here.

The Cleveland teams can be found at #34 (Cavaliers), #61 (Indians), and #109 (Browns). If we're talking about success from the last year, or the last decade, those rankings seem right. If we're talking about the last five years, I'd say the Tribe ought to be ahead of the Cavs. That's just talking wins and losses though. In terms of how well run each team is... I'm aware of what a disaster the Browns have generally been, so a low ranking for them seems appropriate... The Cavs though, have they been especially well run? It seems to me they lucked into LeBron, did a poor job of building a team around him, leading him to leave, lucked into more top picks, and got LeBron to come back.

I'll leave it to those of who more evenly versed on all three teams to sort out whether Cleveland's teams are appropriately ranked or not.

Focusing just on baseball, the Indians are 15th among MLB's 30 teams. Just like their overall ranking, they just barely squeak into the top half. That seems fairly reasonable. Looking at the specifics of the Tribe's placement via their team page in the project, I can some of the assessments (drawn largely from fans) more accurate than others.

The team places near the very bottom in "Title track" which in so far as the team did not make the postseason this year or last, I sort of understand, until I stop to consider that the Indians have been much closer than a lot of teams, and ought to place somewhere closer to the middle. They also do poorly in the ownership category, a reminder that TEH DOLUNZ AR CHEEP isn't a meme we made up from thin air.

The Indians did especially well in "Bang for the buck" (cheapest beer in the Majors!) and "Coaching." I'd be interested to know at what point in the season Tribe fans were being asked to assess the latter of those two categories, given the frustration with Terry Francona many at LGT felt as the season wound down.

It's an interesting project, but I have to say my confidence in it was shaken when I clicked over to the MLB rankings. The Pirates are at #1, which I have no problem with. They've really turned things around there of late, with multiple postseason appearances, and one of the most beautiful stadiums in American sports. At #2 though: the Arizona Diamondbacks. I'm sorry ESPN, but something in your calculations is off if you're concluding that the Diamondbacks are one of the top two franchises in baseball. I can see an argument for them being one of the top two MLB franchises in Arizona, but even then it's close.