Baseball America released their updated farm system rankings on Wednesday morning. They have the Pittsburgh Pirates ranked as the 11th best farm system.
We have seen the Pirates do better in two earlier farm system rankings. ESPN had them slightly better as the ninth best system, while The Athletic had them ranked sixth overall.
Baseball America last updated the rankings in August after the draft signings were completed. The Pirates ranked ninth back then. Not much has changed in the system since then, though the Pirates did add two of the top internationals signings back in January, when they signed Raymond Mola and Jun-Seok Shim. BA recently ranked Shim as the 18th best prospect in the system.
The Pirates rankings have dropped a lot since this time last year for BA. They were ranked third back then, but that included Oneil Cruz and Roansy Contreras as top 100 prospects, as well as some lesser top 30 prospects in the system who graduated throughout the year, such as Jack Suwinski and Cal Mitchell. The 2022 draft was unable to off-set those losses at the top, despite adding Termarr Johnson.
BA has the Pirates third among National League Central teams, trailing the Cincinnnati Reds (eighth) and St Louis Cardinals (ninth), while placing just ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers (13th) and Chicago Cubs (16th).
