The New York Mets farm system has been ranked poorly by experts all offseason, but The Athletic possesses a slightly different take.
On Monday, Keith Law of The Athletic released his MLB farm system rankings. Just like his top-100 prospect rankings, it’s clear that Law likes the New York Mets system more than other evaluators, putting it at No. 16 in the majors.
Law’s view is that the Mets have enough second-tier talent at the top of their system to work as depth until their incredibly young elite prospects are ready to go. This is where the divide is clear.
Law believes that the Mets possess a pair of elite prospects. He puts shortstop Ronny Mauricio at 17th in MLB and catcher Francisco Alvarez at 48. Those are the high marks for both players.
He’s also a clear fan of prospects like David Peterson, Kevin Smith, and Andres Gimenez enough to believe they’ll become capable major leaguers. That’s quite different from most evaluators.
Most believe that all the Mets’ talent — outside of Gimenez — is at the bottom of their farm system. None of the Mets’ top-100 prospects on Law’s list have played above Single-A ball yet.
Without that talent at the top of the farm system, most evaluators don’t like the Mets in this type of ranking. This makes sense, being that players at low levels are so young that it’s hard to project the type of careers they’ll have.
Farm system evaluation has become so results-based that old-school scouting is essentially leaving the internet scouting community. Law represents that projection-based old-school style.
New York has a ton of high-upside youngsters and some high-floor guys at the top. That’s not exciting for evaluators who are looking at the system with 2020 in mind. Nonetheless, it’s intriguing for those who look three years into the future.