Nothing shines a harsher light on the Pirates' all-encompassing failure under Ben Cherington quite like having a well-below-average farm system, and they've definitely got that.
ESPN's rankings of farm systems, released today, has the Pirates at No. 20. This a few months after Baseball America had them at No. 27. MLB Pipeline also does such rankings, but they only list the top 10 because, being a house organ, they don't want to make the other 20 mad.
Bear in mind, Cherington had immense advantages in this area. For one, because the Pirates have been terrible, he's operated with bigger spending pools in the MLB Draft and picked higher. Also, and not to be forgotten, he began his tenure with a fire sale that sent out then-valuable assets such as Starling Marte, Joe Musgrove, Josh Bell, Adam Frazier and others.
So, yeah ... No. 20.
The rest of the Central: No. 8 Brewers, No. 10 Cubs, No. 13 Reds, No. 19 Cardinals.
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Dejan Kovacevic
11:08 pm - 01.31.2025DowntownDK: The Pirates' failure reinforced
Nothing shines a harsher light on the Pirates' all-encompassing failure under Ben Cherington quite like having a well-below-average farm system, and they've definitely got that.
ESPN's rankings of farm systems, released today, has the Pirates at No. 20. This a few months after Baseball America had them at No. 27. MLB Pipeline also does such rankings, but they only list the top 10 because, being a house organ, they don't want to make the other 20 mad.
Bear in mind, Cherington had immense advantages in this area. For one, because the Pirates have been terrible, he's operated with bigger spending pools in the MLB Draft and picked higher. Also, and not to be forgotten, he began his tenure with a fire sale that sent out then-valuable assets such as Starling Marte, Joe Musgrove, Josh Bell, Adam Frazier and others.
So, yeah ... No. 20.
The rest of the Central: No. 8 Brewers, No. 10 Cubs, No. 13 Reds, No. 19 Cardinals.
Want to participate in our comments?
Want an ad-free experience?
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