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Pittsburgh Pirates Ranked as Fourth Best Farm System

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Over the last three days, Keith Law has been posting his rankings of each team’s farm system around baseball. Friday morning he unveiled the top ten teams and rated the Pittsburgh Pirates as having the fourth best system. The Pirates trail the Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees and San Diego Padres on his list.

Law had the Pirates ranked eighth last year. He noted that their top five prospects from this time last year all returned to the list this year, so they maintained that strength and had some players breakout. I’ll note that he didn’t have Jameson Taillon is his top five going into last year like everyone else, but his own top five of Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, Josh Bell, Kevin Newman and Ke’Bryan Hayes should all ranked close to where they were last year at this time.

Law also noted the rise of Mitch Keller in the rankings, and the positive returns from injuries by Cole Tucker and Nick Kingham. He said the Pirates didn’t have the depth of the teams ahead of them and he was somewhat critical of the 2016 draft. It didn’t help that they couldn’t sign 41st overall pick Nick Lodolo, who turned down a huge offer to attend TCU, but by not signing him, that extra pick (42nd overall) will help the 2017 draft class.

On Monday, Law will start releasing his top 100 prospects list. He is going to post 20 prospects a day through Friday, starting with 81-100 the first day. That’s not the best setup for us, since it will likely mean at least three articles to cover his top 100, but we will post anytime a player from the Pirates shows up on his list. Last year he ranked four Pirates in his top 100, then noted that Ke’Bryan Hayes finished just outside the top 100. Law will post his top ten prospects for the Pirates on the following Tuesday.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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