With the baseball season right around the corner, the yearly farm system and prospect rankings are actively being released. In the latest addition, the Phillies found themselves in the top half of the league.
Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has taken a surprising approach, it seems, over the last few years since taking over the Phillies. There was a time when he was all for making the big splash moves to sharpen his MLB rosters by sacrificing his farm system, like his past trades involving Chris Sale, Yoenis Cespedes, David Price, Max Scherzer, Miguel Cabrera and more.
However, while with the Phillies he has done the opposite, instead spending the money on free agents like Kyle Schwarber, Zack Wheeler and Trea Turner. This has allowed him to keep high-profile prospects in Andrew Painter, Aidan Miller and Justin Crawford.
Dombrowski's ability to keep prospects has rebuilt the farm system and set the Phillies up for success
Holding on to these top prospects has helped rebuild and grow a farm system many believed was poor when he first started the job with the Phillies. When Dombrowski took over the team in November of 2022, the farm system was ranked 25th by MLB Pipeline.
The most recent rankings from The Athletic's Keith Law has the Phillies ranked No. 11 in baseball (subscription required), just outside the top 10. His top three include the Seattle Mariners at No. 1, followed by the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Phillies farm system, according to Law, had two top 15 prospects. He ranks Painter 12th overall, followed by Miller at No. 13. Justin Crawford checked in at No. 41 in Law’s Top 100 rankings. These have been the Phillies' top three prospects and have been in the most trade rumors since the start of last season, but Dombrowski has decided to hold onto the trio and continue to build this prospect tree.
“It’s top-heavy, with three guys in the top 50 and one on the just-missed list, but they have a lot of potential in the lowest levels, from the Low-A level,” Law said of the Phillies farm system.
We can speculate that the one just missing his Top 100 list is young catching prospect Eduardo Tait, who sits fourth in the system according to MLB Pipeline and has quickly jumped on scouts' radars. He mentions the excitement in the low-level ball of the farm system that could create MLB-level talent, but the lack of ready-now talent is what hurts the system depth-wise and creates “high-risk, high-reward guys,” according to Law.
The Phillies have the potential to be contenders again for a deep playoff run. It will be interesting to watch this summer how Dombrowski manages another trade deadline with the Phillies. From recent history, it seems he wants to see some of this top-level prospect talent play out.
Regardless of the deadline situation, Dombrowski has done an excellent job of building the farm system based on what he took over with this Phillies organization. It is a promising sign to see the Phillies farm system getting respect heading into another spring training.
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