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Keith Law ranks the Blue Jays farm system 17th, ESPN lists it at 22nd, and more!

Brennan Delaney
1 year ago
As we inch closer to spring training, more and more prospect lists will be released.
In the past week, there have been quite a few releases, such as from ESPN, The Athletic, and Prospects Live. The latter is strictly looking at Blue Jays prospects, while the other two will focus on where the organization stacks up against the rest of the league.
Let’s start with the Jays’ centric list.

Prospects Live:

Admittedly, I can’t go into too much depth about who comes after the top 10, as that is a Patreon exclusive (it’s like seven dollars in Canadian currency a month.)
However, the top 10 is what you’d expect, with Ricky Tiedemann topping it. In fact, the first three prospects on the list are pitching prospects. They have seven 50 overall-graded players, and the last three are rather solid 45 overall-graded players. You can read the entire Top 10 here, which comes with five in-depth scouting reports.
For the enTop 30, it’s well worth the extra $7.50, as ese scouting reports are incredibly in-depth. Heck, I was even able to write one! You can read entire Top 30 here!

Where does The Athletic rank the Blue Jays’ farm system:

The Athletic’s Keith Law has been rather complementary of the Blue Jays in the past, and their 17th ranking came as a little bit of a surprise. Not as big of a surprise as former Blue Jay Kevin Smith ranking 89th in the 2022 edition of the Top 100, but still surprising.
While he only had one Blue Jay in the Top 100 (Tiedemann at 47th, a rather low ranking), he notes that they have plenty of middle infielders signed via international free agency. Moreover, he notes that Yosver Zulueta and Hayden Juenger could pitch for the Jays as soon as next season, while they have a few outfielders with untapped potential.
As for the other American League East teams, the Baltimore Orioles rank third, and could probably be higher. The Tampa Bay Rays rank just behind Baltimore in the fifth spot. The Yankees rank 14th, only three spots ahead of the Jays (we’ll come back to this), while the Boston Red Sox have the worst farm system in the AL East at 23rd.

Where does ESPN rank the Blue Jays’ farm system:

The Blue Jays rank 22nd on ESPN’s list, and somewhere between 17-22 seems fitting in my opinion.
They go on to mention that Brandon Barriera has a front-of-the-rotation upside, while “Orelvis could hit 30 homers or not hit enough to be an everyday player”, which is a pretty fair synopsis. The site also mentions that the rest of the top of the Jays’ farm system (you’d think Yosver Zulueta and Addison Barger) are “shots in the dark” or “potential role players”. 
This is not something I agree with, particularly with the two players I mentioned, as I believe both Zulueta and Barger have pretty high potential.
As for where the other American League East teams rank, the Orioles rank first, which is pretty fair (the Dodgers were first on The Athletic’s list, they rank sixth here). The Yankees rank fourth, which sure. The Rays also rank in the top 10, coming in seventh. Boston, who was the only team behind the Jays on The Athletic’s list, ranks 14th.

What to make of these lists:

It’s good content for the off-season. Listing prospects is a crapshoot in reality. That even goes for me, as Addison Barger wasn’t even an honourable mention in my Preseason Top 20 list for 2022.
The Jays may only have one Top 100 prospect on most sites, which is not something I disagree with. Yosver Zulueta, Orelvis Martinez, Brandon Barriera, and Addison Barger all probably rank in the Top 130 prospects, so they could certainly get a bump in the mid-season rankings.
This doesn’t even mention Tucker Toman, who could easily see a rise in stock or a breakout player as Addison Barger was in 2022.
We’ll see how other rankings (namely Baseball America and MLB Pipeline) rank the Jays organization later this month or in early March!
As always, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @Brennan_L_D.

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