Keith Law released his Farm System rankings over at ESPN.com today and he ranks the Cincinnati Reds 12th overall. You need to be an ESPN Insider to read anything about the Reds, but here is what he has to say about the system:
I haven’t been a huge fan of the returns on the Reds’ recent trades other than the Johnny Cueto deal (which yielded just one prospect for these rankings), but the aggregate result is a big influx of talent on top of a system with a couple of first-round and supplemental-round picks that are looking very promising.
I don’t really know what he means by the Cueto deal only yielded one prospect from these rankings, since both Cody Reed and John Lamb both have prospect eligibility remaining. Perhaps he’s only ranking prospects in the Top 10 or 15 for the entire farm system ranking and has Lamb outside of that range? Otherwise it’s just a very confusing statement. Also of note is that he only has four Reds prospects ranked inside his Top 100. Given that he’s said how he feels about the trades, I’m guessing that means he’s got Jose Peraza on the outside with Robert Stephenson, Jesse Winker, Amir Garrett and Cody Reed on the inside (we will find out soon enough). Still, being ranked 12th with four Top 100 prospects and all of the depth that the organization has seems a tad bit too low at this point.
The 12th place ranking is further down the list than where the team ranks at Baseball America. Sort of. In the Prospect Handbook the Reds did rank 12th, but that ranking does not reflect the system that now includes Jose Peraza, Scott Schebler, Rookie Davis or Eric Jagielo that pushed them into the Top 10. Next week we will get to see how Law ranks the Top 10 of the Reds system and it will give us a better insight into how he views things, but as they stand right now, Law simply doesn’t seem to be too impressed with the system.