Phillies farm system dropping in league-wide rankings
After being ranked as one of the best farm systems in the league for several seasons, the Phillies are now dropping in the rankings.
During their rebuilding process, the Phillies acquired a plethora of talented prospects via trades, the draft, and the international free-agent market. This brought one of the worst farm systems in the league all the way to being one of the best. With some of that talent now graduating to the major leagues, this has caused the farm to drop in league-wide rankings.
Baseball America released their mid-2018 organizational talent rankings Wednesday, and the Phils have seen a precipitous drop. BA ranked their farm system 18th among all 30 teams, in the bottom half of the league for the first time since 2015. They had the third-best farm at this time last year, and coming into this year they had the sixth-best.
Philadelphia also fell off in MLB.com’s overall rankings. They were No. 5 heading into the season, but fell out of the top ten in the midseason update.
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As BA points out, the drop is not a surprise. Two of the club’s Top 100 prospects, J.P. Crawford and Scott Kingery, both became full-time major-leaguers. Other top-30 prospects are either already full-time major-leaguers or will be soon.
Sixto Sanchez and Adonis Medina remain top-100 players, while Alec Bohm also entered the MLB.com and BA top 100 after being drafted. They highlight a system that still offers a good amount of depth.
The rankings could turn back around at the end of the season depending on how their first-round picks fare. 2016 No. 1 overall pick Mickey Moniak has finally started hitting in Clearwater.
2017 first-rounder Adam Haseley is having a strong start to his time in Double-A Reading.
Of course, this drop means less now that the team is having much more success at the major-league level. Plenty of their former top prospects are now contributing to the success with several more still ready to make an impact. It is harder to sustain a top-tier farm system when the major-league club is having success, but they have done a good job at stockpiling talent to help combat this.
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While dropping in organizational talent rankings is not ideal, the Phils are certainly not deprived of prospect talent. They are a young promising team already starting to fulfill its potential.