Atlanta Braves soar in ESPN farm system rankings

Each year, Keith Law of ESPN puts together a ranking, ranging from 1 to 30, of each and every farm system in Major League Baseball. Just days ago (literally), the Atlanta Braves were on track to finish near the bottom of the 2015 list, but with multiple moves geared toward the future, that appears to have changed in a hurry.

Here is what Law had to say about Atlanta, while ranking the club at number six in this year’s edition ($):

"They were a bottom-5 system when the offseason started, but six trades later, they’ve built up a stash of prospects that makes up for five years of execrable drafts and very little production from their Latin American efforts. Ten of their top 12 prospects have appeared on at least one of my past three top-100 rankings, including five this year."

As Law notes, the Braves have made six trades this off-season, with the headline moves that sent Jason Heyward (to St. Louis), Justin Upton (to San Diego) and Evan Gattis (to Houston) out of town from the 2014 ball club. Recent prospect rankings across baseball include pitchers Mike Foltynewicz and Max Fried, to go along with infielder Rio Ruiz, as big-time potential options for the future, and this ranking is an indication of that.

We have (repeatedly) noted in this space that the Atlanta Braves are in trouble with regard to putting a competitive product on the field for the 2015 season. However, John Hart and his cast of characters have made a sharp turn toward planning for the future, and with the glaring exception of a four-year contract for Nick Markakis (I don’t know, either), that knew formula has garnered increasingly positive reviews.

Prospects are often fool’s gold in a sense, but if the front office hand-picked the right players to build around, this “re-tooling” effort could have long-term ramifications in a very positive way.