Braves: Keith Law has an unfavorable ranking for Atlanta’s farm system

It shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone, but the Braves aren’t exactly getting rave reviews on their current collection of prospects:

The Braves are ranked 29th in Keith Law’s Farm System Rankings over at The Athletichttps://t.co/TMKeUO381P

— Kris Willis (@Kris_Willis) February 2, 2023

Law didn’t have any Braves prospects in his Top 100, but interestingly enough, he didn’t have anyone the Braves traded away in it either. I don’t know if still having Kyle Muller, Ryan Cusick, and others would get the Braves a much better ranking. Besides, these things are arbitrary, and the Braves are where they are because of the talent they’ve graduated from their own farm system. Here’s what Law had to say:

29. Atlanta

The only team without a player on my top 100 this year, although that can’t be too surprising after Atlanta sent most of its farm system to Oakland in trades for Matt Olson and Sean Murphy. They do have some pitching coming in the long term and a little in the short term, but they’re very light on position players. They did go for ceiling in a huge way in the 2022 draft, taking three high school arms with their first three picks, and they finally got back into the international free agent market in 2022 when the 2017 penalties expired.

The A’s actually only clocked in at 27th on this list:

27. Oakland A’s

This system really should be better, given all the trades the A’s have made, but they’ve failed to execute in several areas. They gave Robert Puason and Pedro Pineda $7.5 million combined and neither is likely to see Double A, while they’ve missed on a lot of high draft picks, from Austin Beck to Logan Davidson to Jameson Hannah to Jeremy Eierman. (I give them a pass on Kyler Murray. It seemed like a good idea at the time.) The Matt Olson trade has very little impact on their farm system now, with two of those four prospects already graduated and the other two, Ryan Cusick and Joey Estes, taking steps backward in 2022. The A’s have to have a strong farm system to contend, but even after the trades of seven major-league players for a total of 21 players, they’re still far from that goal.

The Braves have some work to do. It will be more difficult post-Dana Brown, but I trust them to get back to pumping out talent regularly.

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Photographer: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire