As part of my prospect rankings, I’ve also ranked all 30 MLB 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 will begin to roll out on Monday, Feb. 2.
Bear in mind that these rankings only consider players currently in a team’s system and eligible for the rankings, meaning they have not yet lost rookie status. I consider all prospects in a system for the rankings, not just those on the top 100; there’s still value in prospects who don’t project to be stars, or even regulars, whether it’s for your own club or for trades.
The increased number of teams scouting the complex leagues to look for players to acquire in trades only further justifies this philosophy for ranking systems — teams are telling us these prospects have value. I do not consider NPB/KBO veterans to be prospects, and I don’t count the mostly 16-year-old international free agents who just signed on Jan. 15 because there’s really no recent scouting information on them.
Last year, I broke these up into tiers, and the response from all of you was that it was helpful, so I’ve done it again this time around.
Tier Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5 Tier 6 Tier 7 Tier 8
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Tier 1
How good is this Brewers’ system right now? They were No. 1 before the Freddy Peralta trade, which brought in two more top 100 prospects to bring them from four to six, third-most in baseball behind the Mariners and Dodgers. The Brewers have upside and they have depth, a credit to their amateur and international scouts and to player development; that last group has taken some less-heralded prospects like Cooper Pratt, Logan Henderson, Marco Dinges and Luis Peña and turned them into potential everyday players/rotation pieces. If anything, I think they’ve been even better since Matt Arnold took over as the top baseball operations executive after the 2022 season, with better integration across scouting and player development — they’re bringing in players they know they can develop, and it’s working across multiple fronts. They’re well-positioned to remain contenders for the next five years, at least, and it’s a credit to the people they’ve got that they’ve built this system.
I take no pleasure in reporting this, but the Dodgers continue to boast one of the best farm systems in baseball — and I could make an argument for them as No. 1, although the Freddy Peralta trade locked the Brewers into that spot for me. The Dodgers are the paragon of hitter development, with a clear idea of who they believe they can help and processes that make it happen once they acquire the player, whether it’s via the draft, a trade or international signing. Kendall George is not a top 100 prospect, but they took George, an 80 runner (on the 20-80 scouting scale) with an awful swing and no power, and fixed the swing to the point where he is now a viable prospect — maybe a Chandler Simpson type (it’s the obvious comparison), maybe even a little better. This seemed like such an unlikely proposition a year ago, but the Dodgers are the best at what they do. Fans of other teams can complain all day about the money the team spends on the major-league roster, but the Dodgers do back it up with the old-school stuff that you should respect, even if you don’t like it: They scout, heavily, and they do individual development work with their players — especially hitters — that is the best in the sport.
The No. 1 system last year fell off a little bit in 2025 due to some departures (Cole Young and Logan Evans graduated; they traded Harry Ford, Jeter Martinez and Ashton Izzi) and a couple of disappointing years from top prospects, notably Felnin Celesten and Jurrangelo Cijntje. They had another very strong draft — they are clearly among the best-drafting teams in baseball right now, and they haven’t missed on a first-round pick since at least 2020 — and have a good balance of position players and pitchers. The real distinction between the Mariners’ system and the two above it is that they don’t have the same kind of depth after their top group. Somewhere around prospect 11 or 12, the system falls off quickly, and if you wanted to argue they should be in tier 2 rather than just over the line in tier 1, well, we can settle this in Temecula.
Tier 2
I know Pirates fans don’t really want to hear about the future when their owner won’t spend on the present, but they’ve got the No. 1 prospect in the sport — a guy who’s a No. 1 for the ages, I think — and a pair of potential front-line starters in the system to go with Paul Skenes, plus a long list of position-player prospects who look like they’re really going to hit. Some have power, some have on-base skills, some really don’t do much beyond putting the ball in play, but this isn’t the Pirates’ system of five or 10 years ago with a bunch of punch-and-judy hitters and back-end starters. There’s ceiling here — like, Sistine Chapel kind of ceiling. Let’s hope there isn’t a Last Judgment on the outfield walls.
I thought the Guardians’ system was going to start to slide in these rankings given the loss of some of their key development people, including director of player development Rob Cerfolio, and their drop towards the back of the first round last year after they picked first in 2024. It’s not showing up yet, at least, as they still have a lot of depth on both sides of the ball. They might not have a true star in the mix, but they have a long list of position-player and pitching prospects who should be major-league 50s (average, so think an everyday player or No. 3 or No. 4 starter, but not a star) for a while, and give the team both a surplus from which to trade or the flexibility to trade some major-league players to restock the system. Travis Bazzana, the first pick in 2024, may not be the impact player they expected, but they went under-slot for him and used the savings on a big group of high school pitchers, two of whom have already shown themselves to be legitimate starter prospects (Joey Oakie, on the top 100, and Braylon Doughty).
The Nationals have certainly restocked their system in the last seven months, trading MacKenzie Gore for five prospects, four of whom are on their top 20; trading Jose A. Ferrer for a former top 100 prospect, Harry Ford; and picking up four more guys on their top 20 in smaller trades last July — all on top of having the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft, which they used to take prep shortstop Eli Willits. On paper, it’s a lot of talent, but it’s also a lot of underperforming talent, at least relative to expectations when those players were drafted or first emerged as real prospects, giving the new front office a significant challenge in their first year on the job.
Tier 3
It’s an extremely top-heavy system, but the Tigers have three of the top 20 prospects in the sport, and I think most GMs would gladly take three prospects of that caliber and a system of nothing else — which isn’t true of the Tigers, I’m just speaking hypothetically — over a system that is much deeper in future big leaguers but doesn’t have those future stars. And if Bryce Rainer comes back healthy and picks up where he left off, it might be three of the top 10 prospects in the sport by Memorial Day.
Chicago graduated several major prospects last year, including Kyle Teel and Edgar Quero off the top 100 list, as well as Colson Montgomery, Sean Burke, Shane Smith, Chase Meidroth and Grant Taylor. Yet they still have an above-average system thanks to some strong drafts and a few more prospects from all of their trades of established big-leaguers. Three of their last four first-rounders are still on the top 100. On the other hand, they’ve had a few prominent prospects stall or just fail to progress as expected, leaving them a little worse off than you’d think given their trades and high draft positions over the last couple of years. They do pick No. 1 this year, the first draft in at least seven years with a clear 1-1 candidate going into the spring, which should help run them back up the rankings.
The Orioles’ system was on the downswing before 2025, the result of several trades to support the big-league team as they contended, but in the last 12 months they’ve had a banner draft, made several small trades for prospect depth, and seen several guys (Nate George, Dylan Beavers, Luis De León and Esteban Mejia) take big steps forward. They would be a bit higher had they not traded four prospects, including two they’d just drafted, for Shane Baz. It’s still a very hitter-heavy system, as the Orioles have drafted very little pitching with high draft picks under Mike Elias — although they did change course a bit and took two college arms with two second-round picks last year.
For several years, I had the Red Sox rated a little lower than perhaps their fans wanted, because there was no pitching at all in the system. Now they’re a pitching development powerhouse, with two left-handed starters on the top 100 who made enormous strides in 2025, while they’ve graduated their big three hitting prospects, so their system is now extremely pitching-heavy. That’s not a bad thing, just an interesting 180 in such a short span.
The Cardinals brought in an all-new player development leadership group, and they saw immediate results with a large number of their prospects, including Joshua Baez and Tekoah Roby (the latter of whom unfortunately needed Tommy John surgery just as he was on the cusp of the majors). They have the best catching depth of any team in baseball, and they’ve already shown they can help both hitters and pitchers make real mechanical and stuff changes. There were some setbacks, including injuries to Roby, Quinn Mathews and Cooper Hjerpe, but on the whole, it was a very positive year and a great sign for the future of this system.
Tier 4
This was a tier-3 system before they swapped two top 100 prospects for Freddy Peralta, although that move certainly was a good call for a team that needs to get back to the postseason this year. The Mets have been drafting well for a decade or more, and they’ve clearly got a formula for developing pitchers — part of which is giving everyone a sweeper — that’s helped them develop a large group of arms, three of whom reached the majors last year, with a couple more that are likely to at least debut in some role in 2026.
The Giants have a couple of top-end prospects with high ceilings and good probability — Josuar Gonzalez could easily be in the top 3 by August — but the strength of the system is all kinds of depth, with more high-ceiling guys (the uber-athletic Dakota Jordan, fast-rising pitcher Keyner Martinez) alongside very likely role players and back-end starters (Bo Davidson, Jesús Rodríguez, Carson Whisenhunt). Their 2025 deadline trades already look great in hindsight — and trading relievers for prospects is nearly always the right strategy.
The Diamondbacks’ system is loaded with hitters all around the field, including a couple of catchers in Rookie ball and their usual cornucopia of undersized guys who can really hit, with an infusion of three potential starters in the Merrill Kelly trade. Their 2021-23 draft classes really haven’t panned out, leaving a gap in the system that they’ve refilled through some trades and better drafts in the last two years.
What I said about Detroit applies here in miniature — the Phillies have three top-50 prospects, all three of whom could be stars (but only one of whom is really on that path right now), and another on the top 100, but there’s a big dropoff after that. Would you rather have a system that gives you a dozen or more future big leaguers, where none will be more than a decent regular, or one that gives you a couple of stars and a couple of strong regulars, but not much else? I could argue either side, and it might depend on your ownership’s willingness to spend and what you already have on your big-league roster.
Tier 5
The Rays lack top-end talent (with the possible exception of outfielder Theo Gillen), which is a problem for a team that isn’t going to go buy it in free agency, but they do have a large number of prospects who project to have some positive major-league value. They added Jacob Melton and Anderson Brito in a three-team deal last month, and both are clearly prospects, with Melton at least offering plus value on defense, yet neither is in their top 10. A team in their financial situation really needs to hit on some first-round picks; Shane McClanahan, taken in the supplemental first round in 2018, is their last first-rounder to generate 1 WAR in the majors, and if we limit ourselves to the first round proper, it’s been a decade: just-traded Josh Lowe is at 4.9 bWAR. Since they took Evan Longoria and David Price with their first picks in 2006 and 2007, they have taken one player in the first round or the supplemental (comp) first who’s generated 10 WAR of production in the majors — Blake Snell in 2011. We’ll see if Gillen (2024) or Daniel Pierce (2025) can break the streak.
The Reds continue to draft well, with Chase Burns, their first pick in 2024, already reaching the majors and graduating from these lists, but they had a couple of first-rounders get hurt last year and miss time/underperform, and last year was the first time in ages that I didn’t love their first pick. Their system is bat-heavy, in the sense of position players but also in the sense of guys with more offensive than defensive value, as they’ve produced a lot of pitching in the last five years or so that’s already in the majors. More than half of their starts last year came from players they drafted and developed.
The Cubs graduated two top 100 prospects last year, then traded two guys off their top 10 this January for Edward Cabrera, so they’re down a little bit, and what’s left now is mostly hitting, with eight hitters in their top 10 and nobody who’s a dead-lock to be a major-league starter. (I do like Jaxon Wiggins, but there’s real reliever risk there.) They draft off the model, and most models will steer you towards a position player since they are more valuable with today’s usage patterns. They’re still in this tier because they have four-to-five players with substantial upside atop their system; after that it’s a lot of role player and extra guy types.
My pick to make a big leap this year, the Royals have now banked two strong drafts under new scouting director Brian Bridges. They also have a lot of catching depth, and they have some very intriguing guys in the low minors from their international scouting efforts, led by the pitching prospect with the best command in the minors in Kendry Chourio. Of course, if they contend again, they might end up trading some of these guys, but I see a ton of upside in this system right now. Their Low-A club in Columbia, South Carolina, will probably be loaded to start the year.
The Yankees have two really high-end shortstop prospects, a big group of arms who are probably starters and then the system drops off pretty quickly, even with their well-deserved reputation for creating arms out of thin air. They have traded a ton of prospects in the last eight months, but nobody who would have been in their top 10 right now. In the Ryan Weathers trade, they gave up only one guy, Dillon Lewis, who was going to be on their top 20, and he would have been near the very back of the list. Parks Harber, who went to the Giants in the Camilo Doval deal, is probably the best guy they’ve dealt, as he has real power and has hit extremely well so far against younger competition. They’ve kept all of their best guys, however, and should be able to supplement the big-league rotation with their own depth over the course of this year.
The Twins would be much higher if they could just keep their best guys healthy. Two of their top three prospects have missed time every year with injuries, but I still see so much offensive potential in Walker Jenkins and Emmanuel Rodriguez that I just can’t quit them. The Twins’ system leans position player, with some pitchers in their second tier who are very intriguing and seem poised to make a leap … if they stay healthy, that is.
Tier 6
For all of their trades, the Marlins still haven’t escaped the lower third of the farm system rankings, as they haven’t had a lot of development success stories and their 2024 draft has been a disaster so far. Their valuation model has steered them towards players with certain narrow characteristics, and that has worked astoundingly well in some cases (Kyle Stowers!) and less so in others (that Ryan Weathers trade, although that did just happen). They changed course in the 2025 draft and took college players with all 21 picks, with their first two selections being particularly exciting — I think they got the best college position player in the draft with first-rounder Aiva Arquette.
There is talent here, and even before the change in GM, they were starting to turn the ship and do some more advanced things on the player development side, including creating their own pitching lab, so they could be set to see some real system-wide improvements in Year 1 with the new group in charge. There’s power potential all over the place, as they love those types in the draft, but all of those hitters have hit tool risk, and I’m sure Rockies fans will tell you that the team hasn’t developed a real starting pitcher in eons. Giving their player development people the resources and the autonomy they need will be a big step forward.
The A’s have been low on my rankings forever, but they’ve put three guys on the top 100 this year, the most they’ve had on the list since 2020 (Jesús Luzardo, A.J. Puk and Sean Murphy), and they have a second tier of guys with some potential, all thanks to the Mason Miller trade and a couple of big hits in the draft — counting last year’s first pick, Jamie Arnold, who came into the year with some 1-1 potential. If only they could draft a new owner…
In fairness, they nearly won the World Series, and traded a lot of prospects to get there, sending nearly all of their top pitching prospects after Trey Yesavage to other clubs to bolster their roster for the stretch run. They nailed their first pick last year, prep shortstop JoJo Parker, but lost their second-rounder for signing Anthony Santander, and this year won’t have a second-rounder either while they’ll also see their first pick knocked back 10 spots because they dared to spend money to try to win, tsk, tsk. Anyway, it’s an uphill battle to get this system back up into the top half of the league, but I assume Jays fans would rather win the pennant than win the prospect rankings.
That MacKenzie Gore trade really dented their farm system — again, not a criticism, trading prospects to win games in the majors is a Good Thing™— taking five guys off their top 20, including top-100 prospect Gavin Fien. The Rangers still have some pitching depth, although pretty much all of those guys have reliever risk, and the system falls off quickly once you get to their 2024 draft picks like Malcolm Moore and Dylan Dreiling, both of whom had disappointing full-year debuts.
Tier 7
No surprise here — Atlanta is so aggressive in promoting prospects that they often see players lose eligibility before they’re ready for full-time jobs, and they haven’t drafted all that well in recent years, contributing to the thinning of the system pretty much top to bottom. Scouts who saw their High-A club said it was one of the worst teams they saw all year.
The Astros do have prospects, but they don’t have a lot of ceiling at all, tending towards players with more floor and predictability. Their first-round pick last year, high school infielder Xavier Neyens, was a shift in the opposite direction, and it’s exactly what they needed. He could easily be their No. 1 prospect in a year if he shows he can hit Low-A pitching. Otherwise it’s a lot of back-end starters or relievers, second-division regulars and the occasional ‘if he gets healthy, he’s good’ prospect.
Tier 8
The Angels’ last three first-round picks before the 2025 draft are all in the majors and no longer eligible; Zach Neto is a huge success, Nolan Schanuel is a mild success and on the right track and Christian Moore hasn’t really hit except at altitude in Triple A. Their picks from beyond the first round in those years haven’t panned out so far. Their 2025 draft is their best on paper in forever, so that’s something. They do sign some promising prospects in international free agency, but they rush the best among those guys as well — Nelson Rada was 19 in Triple A, and Denzer Guzman was in the majors a year after he hit .209/.297/.304 in Double A. Whether you agree with their drafting and development philosophy, it’s not the path to a highly ranked farm system.
What did you expect? They’ve traded so many guys that there’s very little left in the system, with relievers and longshots populating most of their top 20. Their first two picks from the 2020 and 2022 drafts are all gone in trades, as are their first three selections in 2023 and their second- and third-rounders from 2024. They also traded their top prospect, Leo De Vries, in a huge package for Mason Miller last July. Two of their top three remaining prospects, Ethan Salas and Kash Mayfield, had disappointing showings last year, and their 2025 draft was hurt by the lack of a second-round pick. Many of those trades have brought the team to the playoffs, or into contention, and they are probably a playoff contender again in 2026, but the supply of prospects is not infinite, not even for a very scouting-focused organization like this one.
