Baseball America posted their updated MLB organization talent rankings on Thursday afternoon. The Pittsburgh Pirates rank 19th overall, one spot down from their preseason ranking from BA.
BA likes the top ten prospects for the Pirates, but they noted that the system has really thinned out recently. We recently posted about the top 30 prospects in the system according to BA and noted that some solid prospects just missed making that list. The two most recent international signing classes should help add talent at the lower levels, but that won’t really show up in the farm system rankings for a few years, so the system could drop even more as top-ranked players lose their prospect status later this season and into next year. The upcoming trade deadline could provide a little help, depending on which direction the Pirates decide to go by next Wednesday.
This 19th spot is the lowest for the Pirates in quite some time. BA had them in the #1 spot in 2014, followed by 7th in 2015, 11th in 2016 and back up to 7th again in 2017. They dropped to 16th place going into 2018 and then 18th place prior to the start of this season.
