One day after Keith Law posted his farm system rankings, Baseball America puts their list out and they have the Pittsburgh Pirates slightly lower than Law. They rate the Pirates as the 11th best farm system(subscription required), three spots below yesterday’s ranking.
While BA does have them ranked lower, they still say that the Pirates have a strong farm system. They like the Pirates depth at shortstop and John Manuel named Jordan Luplow as a breakout candidate. Luplow had a .957 OPS in the second half last year, so you could say that he already started to breakout. If he’s able to handle third base going forward, then he could be a legit top 10-20 prospect in the system next year. Luplow had 51 extra-base hits in 2015 and posted a 59:67 BB/SO ratio. So the signs are there for a solid overall player, especially if his lower offensive numbers early in the year were related to learning a new position.
The rest of the NL Central ranks in the 9-20 range, with Brewers(9th), Reds(12th), Cardinals(14th) and Cubs 20th.
Baseball America will release their top 100 prospects list tomorrow, with the top 50 being announced on MLB Network at 9pm.
