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MLB Minor League System Ranks – The Elite

By Benjamin Chase

Dec 7, 2016; National Harbor, MD, USA; A general view of stage microphones on day three of the 2016 Baseball Winter Meetings at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 7, 2016; National Harbor, MD, USA; A general view of stage microphones on day three of the 2016 Baseball Winter Meetings at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /
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Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /

After counting down the top ten prospects for every organization in MLB, who are the top seven in the league?

An Introduction

Call To The Pen contributor Benjamin Chase has released his top 10 prospects from every MLB minor league system over the last month or so, and he’s put together some research into each minor league system through contacts in the game, reading reviews from other reports, and his own research and reviews.

He has taken the 30 minor league systems and ranked them from #1 to #30. Currently, the way they break down, in Ben’s eyes, there are 7 elite systems, 7 “ugly” systems, and 16 that sit firmly in the middle. That doesn’t mean that a team in the bottom couldn’t move up through a few trades by the end of the offseason, as one of the teams that would have been in the “ugly” portion is now in the “elite” section after offseason trades. Teams can also jump up quickly into that elite group as only two of the the 7 teams in that elite group would have been considered elite just one year ago at this time.

These rankings take into consideration four main factors in rankings – elite prospects, system depth in legitimate prospects, proximity to majors of legitimate prospects, and system reputation for developing their prospects into productive major league players.

Before we get into this dispatch of the list, let’s take a look at the stats on how the list ended up distributed among the divisions…

Best average ranking: NL Central, 11.6
Most teams in the top 7: Tie – NL West and NL East, 2
Most teams in the bottom 7: Tie – AL Central and NL West, 2

This was a lot of fun to put together, and after the first of the year, we’ll be releasing a top 125 prospects in all of baseball from Ben as well, so be looking for that!

Let’s finish with this installment of the elite seven teams at the top of the rankings!

Next: #7

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