As part of my prospect rankings, I’ve also ranked all 30 major-league teams’ farm systems here, with a brief explanation of why they’re in this order — although I think you’ll get an even clearer picture on any individual team by reading the team reports that are rolling out this week (for the American League) and next week (for the National League). Bear in mind that these rankings only consider players currently in the system and eligible for the rankings, meaning they have not yet lost rookie status.
Advertisement
1. Tampa Bay Rays
The Rays may have just won the AL pennant, but the process that got them to that point didn’t gut their farm system and they didn’t shift their draft philosophy to try to suit the needs of the big-league club. Their organization is still replete with high-ceiling talents, led by the best prospect in the minors in Wander Franco and the second coming of Babe Ruth in Randy Arozarena, but it’s the depth in prospects well beyond the eight guys they placed on my top 100 — no other team had more than six — that is most impressive. They have pitching depth, they have guys up the middle, especially at shortstop, and they even have some depth behind the plate, a chronic position of need since the Rays first came into existence 25 years ago. They’ve clicked on all three cylinders of the player development engine: They’ve drafted well, they’ve really improved their work on the international free agent market, and they’ve made several players better once they got into the system. The Rays’ model isn’t one we want to see more teams emulate — it doesn’t involve paying or retaining some of the team’s best players, as we saw this winter with the trade of Blake Snell — but it has worked consistently for Tampa Bay for the last 13 years.
2. Cleveland
Cleveland’s system was already on the ascent before the recent trades that sent Francisco Lindor, Carlos Carrasco, and Mike Clevinger away for prospects and young major leaguers, but those just added even more depth and potential upside to a system that already had both of those things in spades. They’ve drafted for upside, especially in the first round, for several years now, which has meant a lot of long-developing high school prospects who are now starting to bubble up into full-season ball enough where we can talk reasonably about their impacting the major-league team, complemented by ridiculous depth in shortstop prospects signed as international free agents. They’re far deeper in position players, mostly guys up the middle, than in pitching, where the pipeline that gave the major-league team guys like Clevinger, Shane Bieber, Zach Plesac and more is starting to dry up enough that they may need to refocus their efforts on adding arms in the next draft or two.
3. Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays have boosted the talent in their system through all three avenues of player acquisition: They’ve drafted very well in the last two years, including landing the player I had at No. 1 on my board in 2020 in Austin Martin; they’ve found a slew of high-upside position players in international free agency; and they’ve done well acquiring prospects in trades, enough so that they’ve been able to flip the script and trade away some lower-tier guys in deals like the Taijuan Walker trade. The Jays placed six guys on my top 100, one on the just-missed list and have three or four more who would comfortably fit among the next 40 names.
4. Miami Marlins
This is by far the best Marlins system I’ve ever had the pleasure of ranking and detailing, and while that’s not saying much by historical standards, it’s also just an objectively great system, reflective of the new front office’s draft strategy and emphasis on blending R&D with traditional scouting. After everyone (myself included) excoriated them for dumping major leaguers like Giancarlo Stanton for too little in prospect capital, they’ve done far better in subsequent trades, adding Sixto Sánchez, Jazz Chisholm, Jesús Sánchez and Lewin Díaz in trades over the last two years. They’ve also re-entered the international free agent market, an area they’d eschewed under Jeffrey Loria’s reign, and started to find talent there for the first time in over a decade at least, although that will take longer to manifest on their org top 20 or at the major-league level. The Marlins have been a laughingstock — mostly due to their previous ownership’s craven approach — for a long time, but that’s about to end in a significant, on-field way.
Advertisement
5. Arizona Diamondbacks
The Diamondbacks endured one of the worst GM tenures of the century, which resulted in a badly depleted farm system, less-than-productive drafts and a fiasco on the international free agent market because the GM didn’t understand the bonus rules, but current GM Mike Hazen turned things around in a hurry. Some extra picks in the draft helped, as did a few solid trades and heavier investment in the international market, as well as the establishment under Hazen of the club’s first proper R&D department. They’ve also gone after players they felt were undervalued in the draft — Corbin Carroll and Alek Thomas, both relatively undersized high school outfielders, both look like steals relative to where they were selected — and are developing players better than they have in franchise history.
6. Atlanta
The Atlanta system that was the envy of baseball a few years ago remains strong, but it’s starting to thin out due to a slew of promotions, some minor trades and their exile from the international free agent market, which starts to end this year. Their pipeline of pitching will hit a brief gap after this current wave, headlined by Ian Anderson, ends with promotions this year; the next potential starters beyond back-end guys after him and Tucker Davidson will probably spend 2021 in Low A. They do have some surplus talent in the outfield they could use for a trade, and it looks like they have their catcher of the future in Shea Langeliers, addressing a longtime organizational hole, but they’re banking on some development by some high-ceiling, lower-probability draft picks to keep the train rolling.
7. San Diego Padres
The Padres no longer have the best system in baseball, thanks to several key promotions and the series of trades that built them a potential championship-caliber rotation, bringing in Blake Snell, Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove and the since-injured Mike Clevinger, as well as some relief and catching help. They’ve dealt 15 players who’d qualify as prospects this winter in those four trades as well as the Austin Nola-Austin Adams deal, all of which came in the last six months, and at least nine of those would have been on the Padres’ top 20. That the system is still in this kind of shape is a credit to the Padres’ drafting and international scouting efforts, as well as player development.
8. Minnesota Twins
The Twins have managed to keep this system strong even as they’ve turned into the powerhouse of the AL Central in the last two years, because they haven’t really begun to dip into the strength of their farm for promotions or trades just yet. That is about to change with Alex Kirilloff ready for the majors, Jhoan Duran and Jordan Balazovic not far behind, and some depth among their outfield prospects that could help them in the trade market. Even with Royce Lewis developing more slowly than expected and less immediate results from their big international signings, the system remains fairly deep and has plenty of high-ceiling guys to help the Twins win on a moderate payroll, with more potential upside if guys like Lewis, Keoni Cavaco, Blayne Enlow or Emmanuel Rodríguez progress once games resume.
9. San Francisco Giants
The Giants’ system is making a rapid comeback thanks to some high draft picks looking good out of the chute, a promising 2020 draft class where they spread their money out effectively over three picks after the first round, and an advancing group of position-player prospects led by shortstop Marco Luciano. The major-league team hasn’t seen much of the fruits of the system yet, other than Joey Bart, and that may not be true until at least 2022 given where these players are and the loss of the 2020 minor-league season, but if we get games this year this system is likely to jump into the top 5 — helped, naturally, by the fact that they’ll lose almost nobody to promotion to the majors, and by some of those high-ceiling hitters getting to play.
Advertisement
10. Los Angeles Dodgers
The top of the Dodgers’ system looks a little down relative to the last few years — there’s no Walker Buehler or Dustin May here, no Cody Bellinger or Gavin Lux, at least not yet — but it remains very deep, and the top echelon of prospects here includes some guys who could end up in that class a year from now, like pitcher Josiah Gray or catcher Diego Cartaya. As much as we talk about the Dodgers flexing their financial muscle, their successful draft strategy hasn’t revolved around money but good scouting and good player development after the fact. Buehler, May, Lux, Will Smith, now Michael Busch — these guys were all available to other teams, sometimes more than once. The Dodgers are a behemoth, not just rich, but well-run (and also rich).
11. St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals just acquired Nolan Arenado without dealing anyone from their top 10, which I suppose you could argue is a sign of the depth of this system. The Cards went for huge ceiling in the 2020 draft, taking high-upside, high-risk athletes like Jordan Walker, Tink Hence and Masyn Winn, all of whom have pretty significant risk factors in their development but all of whom also have the tools to project as grade-60 or better regulars. They also continue to develop catching better than any other organization, allowing them to trade a Carson Kelly and perhaps to consider trading Andrew Knizner or Julio Rodriguez … which does make you wonder why neither of those latter two guys is with the Rockies right now.
12. Detroit Tigers
The Tigers’ system is better than it has been in some time, but it’s extremely top-heavy, with five prospects in my global top 50, four of whom were top-10 picks in their respective draft classes — and it’s to the Tigers’ credit that they appear to have hit on four of their last five first-round picks, at least. They haven’t had a success story on the international free-agent side in a while, and their draft record below the first round is weaker, with Tarik Skubal their best pick outside the first round since they took Spencer Turnbull (3.2 WAR) in the second round in 2014. What they need now to boost their rebuild is depth, especially on the position-player side, some of which could come from development of high-ceiling players already in the system, like Parker Meadows or Wenceel Perez, but some of which would need to come via trades. Getting Joey Wentz and Franklin Perez, both former top 100 prospects, healthy for 2021 would also help the overall system’s value by quite a bit.
13. Seattle Mariners
As with the Marlins, so with the Mariners: Their system is the best it’s been in at least a decade, with five guys on my top 100, the most they’ve ever had since I started compiling these lists. The biggest difference is that they’re keeping the prospects they acquire, and are dealing for prospects rather than trading them away, even targeting guys in other systems they think are undervalued or could benefit from their player development work. They’ve been hurt more than anything by the major-league team’s flirtations with relevance; they picked sixth in 2020, the first time they’ve picked in the top 10 since 2014 (when they took the since-traded Alex Jackson). There’s also some upside here, as they’ve been willing to take on more teenage talent in the search for ceiling.
14. New York Yankees
The Yankees seem to develop velocity as well as any organization and have used it to great effect for their own system and for packaging unheralded prospects into bigger trades, while largely hanging on to their own high-dollar guys from the draft and the international market. Because they’ve drafted so low in recent years, their top 20 reflects more of the high-upside talent they’ve found internationally than draft products, although they do have a few recent draftees whose industry value might rise quickly once they get to play this year. They have some depth up the middle, especially at catcher, and even with trades like the Jameson Taillon deal they still have a lot of power arms.
15. Kansas City Royals
The Royals’ investment in college pitching in the 2018-20 drafts is really paying off, as they’ve remade a system they’d all but strip-mined to win a World Series and another pennant in 2014-15. They’ve also added a handful of very high-ceiling position player prospects to the system in Bobby Witt Jr. and Erick Peña, both signed in 2019. The real test of the system will be how some of their players who struggled in 2019, like Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez or Khalil Lee, bounce back after a year focused just on development at the team’s alternate site.
16. Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates were probably due for a change in approach on the minor-league side, as many things they’d tried just hadn’t worked out in practice, with first-round picks coming up short and a lot of pitchers getting hurt or just failing to develop, but the two big trades they made this winter have infused a lot of talent into the system, and their international side has brought in some very talented prospects who just haven’t gotten to play in the U.S. yet. I think this is a system on the rise for a variety of reasons, and some is just a function of bad luck turning around given enough time.
Advertisement
17. Cincinnati Reds
The Reds’ system is holding serve, as the team didn’t dip into their prospect pool for trades or significant promotions in 2020 despite their run to the postseason, while continuing to add some high-ceiling talent in the last two drafts. The return of Hunter Greene from 2019 Tommy John surgery will be big for the Reds, as he’s far and away their best pitching prospect and best chance for someone who could pitch in the top two spots of a major-league rotation; below him, their depth is far greater on the position-player side, especially on the dirt and behind the plate.
18. Baltimore Orioles
The Orioles’ new leadership didn’t benefit from trading major-league players for prospects, as most rebuilding GMs do, so their progress has been slower than Baltimore fans might want, but so far they’ve done fairly well with high draft picks and talent already in the system — although I wasn’t a huge fan of how they spread their money out in the 2020 draft. There was no international scouting department to speak of before Mike Elias took over as GM, and their efforts in Latin America still haven’t paid off — the only player in their top 20 who didn’t enter pro baseball via the draft was Yusniel Díaz, signed as a free agent by the Dodgers. They’ve been picking up lesser-known prospects on the sly for a year or so now, and at some point you would expect their R&D-informed player development work to boost some of those players’ stock.
19. New York Mets
The Mets would have had a top-10 system had they not traded away so many prospects in the last three years, although trading a couple of lottery-ticket teenagers for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco is a lot easier to swallow than trading Jarred Kelenic for Robinson Canó and Edwin Díaz was. It’s still a decent system despite all of those departures thanks to some shrewd draft strategy and big-ticket international signings that all look good in the early going. Their pool of talent aged 20 and under is impressive, just from a scouting standpoint, although those players have little to no track records on the field so far.
20. Boston Red Sox
The popular refrain that Boston’s system is bad isn’t really fair or accurate; they have a lot of guys who project to major-league value, and they have a lot of guys with some ceiling who need to get out and play, whether it’s coming back from injury (Jason Groome) or trying to show a real change in skill (Chris Murphy, Matthew Lugo) or just needing to get off the ship and onto a field (Noah Song). Drafting low in the first round for several years, occasionally going without a first-round pick at all, and then going way off the radar in the 2020 draft did not help matters, however.
21. Colorado Rockies
A hypothesis: The Rockies’ system is chronically underrated, including by folks like me, for two structural reasons. One is that, at least under the previous system, most of their teams played in extreme hitters’ environments that skewed reports and stats for pitchers and created skepticism around position players. The other is that they present fewer opportunities for scouts to see their players. They were, at least until now, the only team in baseball without a short-season team at their complex, and they have generally been reticent to share information with scouts during minor-league spring training games or instructional league. That said, there are a lot of good athletes in this system, but a lot of prove-it guys too — players who had some significant question about their game in the draft, or in international free agency, or just in pro ball in general, that will only be answered with games. Yes, I am saying that a lot this year, and no, I’m not bothered by it. We are operating with less information than ever.
22. Chicago White Sox
The White Sox have graduated or traded a lot of talent but still have four guys atop their system who will have major-league value in 2021-22, and now they have some high-ceiling arms below that as they opened up their draft approach a little in 2019. The system’s problem now, as ever, is a lack of depth, especially up the middle, although their international scouting group has been adding more players to the system than they have in quite some time.
23. Los Angeles Angels
If we were just ranking systems by tools, somehow adding up those grades or averaging them or however you might measure an entire organization’s toolsiness, the Angels would be in the top half, maybe the top 10. They love athletes, targeting them in the draft and on the international market, but developing those guys when their baseball skill level starts out low is a huge challenge for any organization. They also have tried to develop some of those athletes as two-way players, and I’m not sure that does anything except create prospects who are OK at both and great at neither.
Advertisement
24. Texas Rangers
Talk about a system that needs to get healthy. The Rangers had a terrible run of injuries in 2019, including four top 20ish prospects going down with Tommy John surgery and Anderson Tejeda needing shoulder surgery. Their luck hasn’t really turned around yet, as their breakout pitcher from the back fields in 2020, Ricky Vanasco, also blew out his elbow. I like what they’ve done in their recent trades, acquiring far-off or just less-known prospects in the Lance Lynn, Rafael Montero and Elvis Andrus-Khris Davis deals.
25. Houston Astros
Trades, lower draft picks and the gutting of the Astros’ pro and amateur scouting departments have really put a dent in what was once a stacked system. Some big player development successes and aggressive moves on the international free agent front give the Astros some long-term potential, and their 2020 draft leaned back toward upside and away from low-ceiling performers.
26. Chicago Cubs
The Cubs have tightened the purse strings at the major-league level, but their farm system isn’t up to the task of backfilling the major-league roster just yet, and the organization is really short on potential stars after Brennen Davis, which is what they’ll need to build another contender now that the 2016 core is splitting up and ownership isn’t spending.
27. Philadelphia Phillies
The Phillies’ trouble in the draft is well documented; while the whiff when picking first overall in 2016 is the most famous example, their low ROI on high draft picks goes beyond just that pick and that year, from Cornelius Randolph to Kevin Gowdy to Cole Stobbe to Adam Haseley. They’ve also had a lot of trouble developing hitters, with a lot of swing tinkering that hasn’t produced any results and in some cases may have set those players back. Their international free agent scouts continue to find talent, often at lower dollar figures, and their 2019-20 drafts, under new scouting director Brian Barber, look more promising out of the chute than did the drafts the previous four years.
28. Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers’ system has been crushed by trades, low draft picks and a lot of high-round picks that just haven’t worked out (Corey Ray, Lucas Erceg, Tristen Lutz). After several years out of the high-end international free agent market, they’ve started to invest there again, with a big class in 2019, but of course we haven’t seen any of those players play yet. They could have an impact on this system the way the Giants’ big international class in 2018 is having on San Francisco’s farm system.
29. Oakland A’s
Terrible luck with pitcher health and limited production on the international front have both really hurt the A’s system, which is generally shallow but especially so on the mound, while they’ve also been held back by some top-10 overall picks that haven’t worked out, from Austin Beck to Kyler Murray (the latter not their fault).
30. Washington Nationals
The Nats won the World Series in 2019, and as is often the case with teams that do so, they spent a lot of their prospect capital to get there. They’ve traded prospects, drafted lower in the first round and given up some picks for free agents. Their international scouting department has been very aggressive under the new system, however, and the Nats’ system could look a whole lot better in a year if all of their teenage Latin American prospects get a chance to play and show us if their abilities line up with their tools.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic / Photos, from left: Toronto’s Austin Martin / Associated Press; Tampa Bay’s Wander Franco / Getty Images; Cleveland’s Triston McKenzie / Getty Images; Arizona’s Corbin Carroll / Associated Press; Miami’s Edward Cabrera / Getty Images)
