According to one well-respected evaluator, the Red Sox farm system is verging into elite territory.
On Thursday, Baseball America released its midseason organization talent rankings, and gave Boston the No. 5 spot, a five-spot improvement over their preseason rankings.
Coming in at No. 10 in March was an impressive jump, given that the organization hadn’t cracked the top-10 in over half a decade. Even more so, considering BA’s expert evaluators deemed them No. 30, also known as the bottom of the barrel, in 2019.
No. 5 is formidable.
“With a lack of recent success by the major league club, Boston has found itself at the top of the draft more frequently than Red Sox fans would like,” BA explained. “It has, however, yielded considerable fruit in recent years as Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony and Kyle Teel each represent a Top 100 prospect taken by the Red Sox in each of the past three drafts.
“The depth of the Red Sox system is strong, as the emergence of several pitching prospects — most notably Luis Perales, Wikelman Gonzalez and Yordanny Monegro — has changed the look of the system in just a few short months. The Red Sox are stocked with up-the-middle talent, as all of their top 10 positional prospects play in the middle infield, center field or catcher. This current cache of prospect depth is likely Chaim Bloom’s greatest achievement during his time in Boston.”
While other franchises churn out homegrown players at astounding rates, developing top-tier talent has long been touch and go for the Red Sox, hence luring Bloom away from the Tampa Bay Rays, one of those clubs doing the churning, in November 2019.
At the Major League level, the chief baseball officer’s first three seasons were a mixed bag. The Red Sox finished last in 2020 and 2022, with a surprising Wild Card run all the way to the ALCS in between. How this year shakes out is anyone’s guess at this point, but at the moment, the Red Sox have a fairly comfortable winning record and are only 2 1/2 games out of a Wild Card spot.
The farm system growth, however, is abundantly clear. They rank ahead of the Rays (No. 8), New York Yankees (No. 11) and Toronto Blue Jays (No. 25). (The Baltimore Orioles nabbed the top spot.) Triston Casas should receive some Rookie of the Year votes, and Brayan Bello keeps dominating the Yankees. Ceddanne Rafaela is already considered a future perennial Gold Glove outfielder and Teel is their best catching prospect since Jason Varitek.
To paraphrase Alex Cora before the trade deadline earlier this month, there’s no trophy at the regular-season finish line for having the best farm system. However, there’s no doubt that a winning house is built upon the foundation of a strong farm system. Its depth cushions the blows of injuries, and its fruit is the currency of game-changing trades, such as the ones that brought Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel to Boston, two of the last puzzle pieces of a championship team.
Depth has been evident throughout the season, keeping the big league team afloat when most expected them to sink to the bottom weeks, even months ago; it’s the clear difference from previous seasons, such as 2022 and 2019, when the Red Sox didn’t have enough in the minors when injuries started piling up.
For the first time in years, the Red Sox have ample valuable cards to play. Unlike the Death Star in “Star Wars,” they’re poised to head into the offseason a truly “fully-armed and operational battle station.”
