Spoiler https://theathletic.com/1641139/2020/03/02/keith-laws-farm-system-rankings-for-all-30-mlb-teams/ 1. Tampa Bay Rays The Rays need a strong farm system to stay competitive, given their revenue constraints and unwillingness to spend big on their major-league payroll, but they have enough depth in their system right now that they can trade from it to keep the big-league team competitive. Not only do they have the top prospect in the game, but they also have substantial pitching depth — even after trading one of their top pitching prospects — and have benefited from a recent change in draft philosophy as well as increasingly productive classes of international free agents. They’ve also done well in stocking the system with middle-infield prospects, many of whom will eventually move to other positions but at least start out with the potential to stay up the middle. The only place they’re really weak at the moment is behind the plate. The Rays may not know where they’ll be playing for the next few years, but they should be competitive for some time to come. 2. Atlanta Braves The pipeline in Atlanta continues, even though the team has been effectively out of the international prospect market for two years now. That’s thanks to the last fruits of the previous regime’s efforts and several very productive drafts in the time since, including a 2019 draft class that already looks like it’s yielding positive results. They have depth in pitching, even with several graduations of top pitching prospects the past two years, and behind the plate, which is always valuable. They are light in the middle infield, although Braden Shewmake’s emergence as a likely long-term shortstop is a very promising development. 3. Los Angeles Dodgers The Dodgers’ chain of elite prospects remains unbroken, to the point where perhaps we should no longer be surprised. Corey Seager was followed by Cody Bellinger, who is now followed by Gavin Lux. Julio Urías was followed by Walker Buehler, who was followed by Dustin May, who may now be followed by Josiah Gray. They’ve drafted well, they’ve fared exceptionally well internationally, and they’ve even added some prospects in trades while still contending, a neat trick few teams pull off more than once. They even have enough catching depth to put their third-best catching prospect, Keibert Ruiz, on the trade block. The Dodgers get credit for the money they spend but not enough for the players they develop on their own. 4. Arizona Diamondbacks The Diamondbacks traded two major-league stars for a total of seven prospects, but those deals have little to do with their ranking here, with two already graduated and only one of the other five in the team’s top 10. It’s about everything else: very productive drafts, goosed by some extra picks and a little good fortune (e.g., the No. 4 player on my 2019 board, Corbin Carroll, getting to them at pick 16), and some strong early returns on international classes, including a payoff on an early, aggressive effort in the Bahamas. They’re even here despite trading their No. 1 prospect at the time, Jazz Chisholm, to Miami in July. 5. San Diego Padres The No. 1 system in my rankings the past two years took a few hits in 2019, from the graduations of the top prospect in baseball last winter (Fernando Tatis Jr.) and five others from its top 20 to the trade of top 100 overall prospect Xavier Edwards this winter for Tommy Pham and Jake Cronenworth. The Padres have also seen a few guys stall in their progress, or at least hit some obstacles as they’ve reached High A or Double A, while the pipeline behind them isn’t quite as productive as it was right after 2016, when they spent over $70 million in bonuses and penalties in the international market. They do still boast the minors’ top pitching prospect and substantial pitching depth, as well as a large class of highly athletic position players all across the diamond who look like they could fill out most of a lineup in two to three years. 6. New York Yankees The Yankees have clearly figured out some things on the development side, especially finding ways to help pitchers throw harder or throw higher-quality pitches (like boosting spin rates), and have also stayed active on the international side. Their Latin American contingent helmed one of the most lauded groups of short-season prospects I found during the process of assembling these rankings, with teams already asking for some of their GCL kids in trade talks. They’ve also got pitching coming, headlined by a risky first-round pick who’s worked out extremely well so far in Clarke Schmidt. 7. Toronto Blue Jays The Blue Jays system remains in the top 10 thanks to a little of everything. Their past two drafts, in particular, look very strong. Their international scouting department has added some of the highest-ceiling prospects they’ve had since before I worked there. They added two more of their top-10 prospects in the Marcus Stroman trade. And they’re developing well, with their top two prospects improving since they entered the Toronto system. 8. Miami Marlins I think this is the highest I’ve ever ranked the Marlins, who were generally busy trading away salaries or skipping Latin America and then rushing the few prospects they did have to the majors. Now they’re adding talent everywhere they can and importing some of the development ideas their core baseball group brought over from the Yankees system. There’s a lot of ceiling here, and thus a lot of risk, but for the first time in more than a decade there are some possible star position players on the way. 9. St. Louis Cardinals The Cardinals just keep doing it, even with a complete washout draft in 2017 and misses on their first picks in 2015 and 2016. Their evaluation of Dylan Carlson appears to have been well ahead of everyone else’s, they keep finding and/or creating catchers, and they’ve been shrewd about adding prospects in selected trades to balance out some of the other prospects they’ve traded away. They’re light in the middle infield, but that catching strength, even after trading away Carson Kelly, is a Very Good Thing™. 10. San Francisco Giants I feel like the whole exceeds the sum of the parts here; each individual Giants prospect of note has some significant risk of low or no return, but if you add them all up, there’s more than enough upside to start to feel optimistic about the Giants’ long-term future. The short term might be bleak as very little help is on the immediate horizon from the farm, but their crop of hitting prospects aged 20 and below is extremely strong and brings a lot of ceiling on one or both sides of the ball. 11. Seattle Mariners This is not a typo: Seattle’s farm system is actually … good. Someone should check on Jerry DiPoto, who hasn’t traded a prospect away in several weeks now. They’ve also drafted better in recent years, and their two big signings in the July 2 market in 2017, Julio Rodriguez and Noelvi Marte, look like successes so far, ending a long drought of prospects from Latin America going back to Félix Hernández. 12. Kansas City Royals Pitching they’ve got, thanks to a bumper crop of college pitchers selected in 2018 that should start to impact the major-league roster this year. The position player group lags well behind, with some very talented players in the system who have not converted their physical gifts into production yet, led by the troika of high-profile hitters — Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez and Seuly Matias — who struggled in High-A Wilmington last year, even as the parade of future rotation regulars passed through Delaware (paying a $4 toll). 13. Chicago White Sox It’s the same story each year for the White Sox — their system has a small group of very high-profile prospects, several of whom are about to alter the big-league roster permanently, but the depth trails off quickly after the top 10. They deserve credit for diving into the high school pitching market again with their picks of Andrew Dalquist and Matt Thompson, the former a more advanced pitcher with less ceiling, the latter a high-ceiling guy who’s less advanced as a pitcher. 14. Pittsburgh Pirates For all that went wrong in Pittsburgh the past few years — some of which is blamed on the previous regime but wasn’t their fault at all — Ben Cherington and company inherited a decent farm system, with a lot of athletes among their pitchers and position players who may just need different approaches to reach their ceilings. 15. Minnesota Twins The Twins system as a whole had a down year in 2019, with some of the highest-profile players taking steps back or just failing to advance, but there is still enough depth, especially hard-throwing arms, to keep them around the middle of the pack. I’d like to see more up-the-middle impact to get them into the top tier, although that is harder to do when the major-league team is this good and you draft near the end of the first round.
Spoiler 16. New York Mets They traded four of their top 10 prospects in the last year, and they’re still right around the midpoint of the list, thanks to still-productive drafts and a flow of seven-figure signings from Latin America who’ve come into pro ball and, by and large, produced right away. I can understand Met fans’ concerns that their elite prospects will be traded for short-term help in the majors, but there’s enough in the second tier of guys — after Ronny Mauricio and Francisco Alvarez and the 2019 draftees — to help patch the roster in July as needed. 17. Texas Rangers Texas has a lot of guys you’d like to have, but perhaps not a lot of guys you’d go out of your way to trade for, although they certainly have some players in Category 1 who might get to Category 2. They tried some things on the pitching side that have not worked out, with a rash of Tommy John surgeries in the past year-plus that stands out even in an industry that seems to treat them like they’re paper cuts. There’s a lot of untapped athleticism in the system as well. 18. L.A. Angels Jo Adell’s a stud, Brandon Marsh might be, too, but many of the other players with upside in this system took steps back last year or were hurt, and then the Angels traded away their first-rounder to clear Zack Cozart’s salary, so the system as a whole is in worse shape relative to their competitors than it was a year ago. It’s also really young – everyone’s system is young, of course, but this one seems especially so, with only one prospect drafted from college in their top 20. 19. Detroit Tigers The most top-heavy system in baseball, the Tigers’ farm boasts three elite pitching prospects and a very high-upside outfielder, then drops off extremely quickly before we’re even out of the top 10. They’ve added some bulk with trades, both on the pitching side and with position players, while their top prospect signed by the Tigers on the July 2 front is only No. 15 in their system. 20. Colorado Rockies Four of their most notable position-player prospects had down seasons in 2019, and their pitching depth is probably as thin as it’s been in several years. Their 2019 draft was college-heavy, but they rolled the dice on some upside after the first round, which should give Rockies fans hope the system will look stronger a year from now. 21. Cleveland Indians Cleveland’s full-season clubs were very light on potential regulars, but its short-season teams, down to the AZL, were loaded with talented position players signed as international free agents. The list of potential starters among the prospects is quite short, however, after a few years of producing not just impact starters but also quality back-end guys like Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale. 22. Philadelphia Phillies The Phillies have made some quixotic decisions on the development front — pushing very young, often physically immature players to full-season ball, then starting college products like Alec Bohm and Spencer Howard in Low A — that seem to have held back their system as a whole despite better drafts the past 2-3 years and continually productive international classes. 23. Cincinnati Reds This system might have been a lot higher had the Reds not traded three of their top five prospects in the past year-plus or tinkered with some prospects’ swings to try to get to more power. They’ve drafted quite well as long as you remember the players they’ve traded, but there isn’t a lot left here that can help the big-league team this season. 24. Baltimore Orioles It’s still early in the rebuild and the Orioles’ first draft under Mike Elias was fine, but not a blockbuster. There’s some back-end pitching depth here behind the big two starter prospects, DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez, and a few position players in the low levels who have upside beyond what they’ve shown so far. This team needs more total bulk in the system and to get active in Latin America again. 25. Boston Red Sox Trades, promotions, and low draft picks have caught up with the Red Sox, whose major-league need for pitching won’t be satisfied by the fruits of the farm any time soon. Their top two pitching prospects have big questions — one is just coming back from Tommy John, the other may have to go spend a few years on a submarine — and beyond them it’s back-end starters or, more often, starters who project as relievers due to deliveries or lack of a third pitch. 26. Oakland A’s Oakland has found value in a lot of unexpected places, from later draft picks or selections of unconventional players to buy-low opportunities in trades, but they’ve had worse luck when the opportunity costs were higher: drafting Kyler Murray only to see him choose football, drafting Austin Beck and Richie Martin in the first round, handing Lazarito $3 million to strike out 221 times last year. That means the system has a lot of guys who’ll play in the big leagues but not a lot of guys who will be impact big leaguers. 27. Houston Astros It’s funny, but when you get rid of all of your amateur scouts, your drafts get a whole lot worse. If it weren’t for the work of the international scouting department, helmed by Oz Ocampo (now with Pittsburgh), this would absolutely be the bottom system in the majors. 28. Chicago Cubs The Cubs’ drafts have just been fair the past few years, and they’ve fared especially poorly when they reversed course and tried to draft pitching high rather than going for the certainty of position players. Yet their system is still mostly guys they drafted with just a smattering of prospects from Latin America. There are a few names here who could pop in 2020, but I think we say that about the Cubs every year. 29. Washington Nationals You don’t care, right, Nats fans? You got a ring! That’s what the farm is for, and Mike Rizzo and company worked the heck out of their system to get to that World Series. They’ve traded a lot of prospects, two of whom look like they’ll hurt (Lucas Giolito and Jesús Luzardo), but they have a world championship to show for it. That’s good, because it gets thin very quickly here, most notably on the pitching front. 30. Milwaukee Brewers The Brewers have traded or promoted so much talent the past few years that a couple of misses on early draft picks are much more noticeable; they were the only team that came close to failing to place a prospect on my top 100 this year, and they were the hardest team to write up with my self-imposed minimum of 20 prospects per team, saved largely by some high-upside players signed in the past three years out of Latin America. This was a choice, to some extent — the major-league team came within one win of a World Series and continues to contend, at the cost of the long-term value of the farm system.
The ridiculousness of purposely neglecting to mention the minor league capital the Astros have traded away the past few seasons shows laziness and bias.
Of course. It's personal with him. Not because some prospects have been promoted, not because some have been traded (hello 2 WS in 3 years) but because they fired some scouts. OK Keith...
At this point, all of us should be accepting of the fact that unprofessional journalism is gonna be the standard for us this season. Luhnow's regime pissed off a lot of people in baseball circles. and now with the cheating scandal they can try to blow off how successful everything they did was. They had to keep their yap shut when we were dominating.
He knows he doesn’t have to be objective when it comes to the Stros. Every media member out there will side with him no matter how outlandish he gets. Our local media is a bunch of p*****s
He also paints a pretty bleak future for the entire AL West: Mariners 11 Rangers 17 Angels 18 As 26 Astros 27
If Whitley/Urquidy/Javier etc... hit and there's a good chance that the farm produces atleast 3-5 pitchers the Stros will be fine. What the Stros really need is for this last draft class of position players to produce. Lee/Brewer/the other OF they drafted/Kessinger and the Stros will be fine. For this year I hope Tucker grows up and becomes a major contributor to the MLB team. I wish they would've drafted Benintendi instead of Tucker.
1. Forrest Whitley 2. Jose Urquidy 3. Abraham Toro 4. Freudis Nova 5. Bryan Abreu 6. Cristian Javier 7. Jeremy Pena 8. Korey Lee 9. Hunter Brown 10. Jairo Solis 11. Colin Barber 12. Brandon Bielak 13. Enoli Paredes 14. Jordan Brewer 15. Grae Kessinger 16. Tyler Ivey 17. Luis Garcia 18. Jose Alberto Rivera 19. Jojanse Torres 20. Shawn Dubin 21. Dauri Lorenzo 22. Luis Santana 23. Garrett Stubbs 24. Taylor Jones 25. Chas McCormick 26. Brett Conine 27. Blake Taylor 28. Jairo Lopez 29. Nivaldo Rodriguez 30. Blair Henley
I may be a homer and be consistently overly optimistic about Houstons farm, but there’s no way it’s in the bottom 5 of the league unless the absolute only criteria is elite position player prospects. To rank Houston that low you have to completely ignore depth position player prospects and ignore pitching entirely. To buy Law’s assertion that firing scouts is why their farm blows would be to ignore all the evidence. Let’s look at the top 3 rounds of the last 5 drafts: 2015: Bregman (superstar) Tucker (graduated, MLB Top 30 prospect prior) Cameron (traded) Eshelman (traded) Ferrell (oft-injured, will be in AAA) 2016: Whitley (MLB Top 30 prospect) Dawson Rogers (traded) 2017: Bukauskas (traded) Martin (traded) Matijevic Perez Ivey 2018: Beer (traded) Schroeder Pena (fringe MLB Top 100 prospect) 2019: Lee Kessinger Brewer So, this “scoutless” front office has not missed on a single first round pick in the last 5 years (3 were top prospects and are still in the system, 3 were part of blockbuster trades for ToR SP). You can denigrate Korey Lee all you want but his debut results were fine and anyone writing prospects off after a half season is plain stupid. Of their 2nd round picks (which typically do not pan out anyway), they’ve had less luck, but not a single finalized bust. Martin and Eshelman were key pieces in big trades. Dawson and Matijevic are likely to reach the majors (albeit as bench pieces) and its way too early to tell on Perez (HS draftee recovering from injury until this year), Schroeder (HS pitcher), and Kessinger (1/2 season of pro ball). Their track record in the 3rd rd is fine: Ferrell is on the verge of reaching the majors, Ivey is a high ceiling pitching prospect in the Org Top 15, Rogers was part of the Verlander trade, Pena is a fringe Top 100 prospect (FAR outperforming what is expected of a late third rounder), and Brewer is considered one of the highest ceiling prospects in the system. Again, not a single finalized bust among them. Meanwhile, their big league 40 man roster features players they drafted in the 34th (James), 19th (Jones), 12th (Straw), 8th (Stubbs), and 5th (Toro) rounds, and they have gotten value via trade out of guys drafted in the 11th (Sandoval), 5th (Thornton), 26th (Rojas), and 30th (Bohanek) rounds. It’s fine to say Houstons farm sucks, if you look solely at Top 100 lists. But even then, there’s no reasonable way to argue that the low ranking is due to firing scouts. It’s due to drafting late and trading SHITLOADS of prospects.
Put another way, of their 16 most recent 1st-3rd rd picks who have had at least a full season of pro ball: 2 are core pieces of the big league roster 6 were traded for core pieces of the big league roster 2 are currently on the BA Top 100 4 (all 2nd and 3rd round picks) are in the upper minors and project to be complementary/bench/AAAA players 2 (2nd round picks) are 20 year olds in the lower minors Converting at least 62.5% (10/16) of your top 3 rounds into major league value is a well above average success rate. F Keith Law.
Only been 2 classes since Luhnow peed in Law's cherrios. Removing players traded, it looks like a lot of "low ceiling college players" from a certain erroneous point of view.
https://www.mlb.com/astros/news/astros-prospect-report-spring-training Putila talks up Jairo Solis, says he’s closer to 6’5” 230 than 6’2” 190. Also mentions positive things about Jeremy Pena and Jose Alberto Rivera.
https://www.mlb.com/astros/news/astros-players-impressing-the-most-this-spring MacT asked veterans which prospects were impressing them, and Taylor Jones, Myles Straw, and Blake Taylor got mentioned. Would be great if at least one of Jones, Straw, and Toro could be a quality everyday player next season, since for now it looks likely Houston will lose 3 everyday players to free agency (Springer, Brantley, and Gurriel). How much worse would this lineup be than the one they will use this season? CF Straw 3B Bregman 2B Altuve DH Alvarez SS Correa RF Tucker 1B Toro/Diaz LF Jones/Dawson/McCormick C Maldonado/Garneau
After what I saw last season I'm high on Straw as an everyday C.F.. He'll never hit for enough power to be an impact player, but I think he'll get on base enough to let his speed and glove play.
I think his speed, defense, and on-base skills are good enough to make him a solid bet to be an everyday caliber player. Whether that means he’s a 1.5 WAR guy who is a bottom of the order hitter for a crummy team, or a 3 WAR guy who leads off for a contender will depend on how his power develops. If he can even just get to the point where he’s not a slap guy who teams can’t shift on and has enough over the fence power to keep pitchers honest, I think he would be a fine replacement for Springer.
