Keith Law at ESPN.com ranked the Cincinnati Reds farm system as the 12th best system in baseball on Wednesday. Today, Baseball America did the same thing.
The ranking is up from the 16th spot where they entered the season. The team graduated several prospects, including Raisel Iglesias, Michael Lorenzen and Tucker Barnhart. Of course the trades of Johnny Cueto, Todd Frazier and Aroldis Chapman helped bring in some talent as well.
The 12th ranking is a bit lower than expected given that is the exact spot the organization was ranked as in the Prospect Handbook, where none of the newly acquired players were included in the Reds organizational Top 30. To get a clearer answer on the topic, I reached out to JJ Cooper at Baseball America to see if the rankings in either the Handbook or on the site were inclusive of the players acquired in the December trades.
@dougdirt24 handbook includes Peraza trade. New rankings include Yankees deal but didn’t bump Reds higher. Did knock Yanks down 1 spot.
— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) February 11, 2016
Adding in Rookie Davis and Eric Jagielo wasn’t enough to bump the Reds up even one spot in the farm system rankings, which is interesting to think about just how much of a gap there was between 11 and 12 when that doesn’t swap the two teams rankings. Here is how the National League Central stacks up against each other according to the rankings:
| Rank | Team | 2015 Rank |
| 9 | Milwaukee Brewers | 21 |
| 11 | Pittsburgh Pirates | 7 |
| 12 | Cincinnati Reds | 16 |
| 14 | St. Louis Cardinals | 15 |
| 20 | Chicago Cubs | 1 |
The Reds find themselves as the third ranked team in the division, but they are right there with the Brewers and Pirates, and I guess the Cardinals are bunched with the Reds as well. The Cubs have taken a big step backwards, but that’s what happens when you graduate several Top 100 prospects in a season.
Tomorrow Baseball America will release their Top 100 overall prospects list, and given where the Reds rank overall in the organizational talent rankings, I’m not too sure what to expect in terms of how many Reds will make the list. Jesse Winker is currently ranked as the 6th best prospect in the system by Baseball America, and he’s surely got to be a Top 100 guy, right? If so, it’s going to be interesting to see six Top 100 prospects and what I believe is a very deep system ranking as a middle of the pack organization in terms of talent.