Baseball Prospectus is the next outlet to rank the Pittsburgh Pirates with a top three farm system. The outlet released their farm system rankings this morning, putting the Pirates third behind the Twins (1) and Cubs (2). The Pirates have been ranked in the top three in all of the main ranking lists. Baseball America and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com had them number one. Keith Law also had them third.
BP had good things to say in their brief write up. They called Josh Bell and Cody Dickson breakout candidates for the 2014 season. They said that West Virginia is a must-see affiliate, which seems to be an annual thing. BP points out that West Virginia will likely see Austin Meadows, Reese McGuire, Harold Ramirez, and Cody Dickson at the start of the 2014 season. I’d also add that it’s likely that Buddy Borden, JaCoby Jones, Wyatt Mathisen, Jin-De Jhang, and Adam Frazier could end up at the level. It’s hard to get an accurate projection at this point, but West Virginia will once again have a few of the top prospects in the system, and a ton of talented guys who have the chance to give the team their third system breakout prospect in three years (previously Tyler Glasnow in 2013, Alen Hanson/Gregory Polanco in 2012).
The most encouraging thing was that BP pointed out that the Pirates will likely lose Jameson Taillon and Gregory Polanco as prospects this year, but have strong enough depth that the Pirates should be a top three farm system “for years to come”.
