Mets Farm System Ranked 15th by Keith Law

Brett Baty, Photo by Richard Nelson

While the New York Mets have become a win-now team in recent years, they have done a good job in making sure that hasn’t hurt the prospect depth in their farm system.

In his latest organizational rankings for The Athletic (subscription required), Keith Law has the Mets ranked as the 15th-best farm system in baseball. This comes after Law had five Mets prospects ranked inside his Top 100 prospect list.

Here is a little bit of what Law had to say about the Mets system:

“The Mets have drafted exceptionally well, and have had some huge successes on the international front, at least in terms of getting guys who would become top-100 prospects…The current system is pretty top-heavy, but the upper tier, which has the five guys on the top 100 plus two more I’d say were in the next 30-40, is good enough to make this a mid-level farm system overall.”

Of course, all eyes in the Mets system will be on the two catchers this year in Francisco Álvarez (No. 7 overall) and last year’s first-round pick, Kevin Parada (No. 44), who will be playing his first full season in professional baseball. The other three players in Law’s Top 100 were third baseman Brett Baty (No. 31), outfielder Alex Ramirez (No. 68), and shortstop Ronny Mauricio (No. 87).

Law made it a point in his summary of the Mets system that the organization has intriguing arms at the lower end of the farm system:

“There’s some intriguing pitching much lower down, but nobody has popped yet to be a likely big-league starter.”

Law did not name any specific pitchers, but the Mets have invested heavy draft capital the last few years in pitchers such as righty Blade Tidwell (2^nd round, 2022), right-handerMatt Allan (3^rd round ,2019), and righty Calvin Ziegler (2^nd round pick, 2021) just to name a few.

While the Mets have traded some of their higher-end prospects in recent years (Pete Crow-Armstrong, Endy Rodriguez, Jarred Kelenic), they have been able to keep the farm system stocked with top talent and still have it ranked as one of the better farm systems in the division.

According to Law, the Mets have the second-best farm system in the NL East behind the Washington Nationals (11^th). The other three teams are at the bottom of the pack in terms of the rankings, including the Braves, who are at 29^th due to all their prospects reaching the majors, such as RHP Spencer Strider, OF Michael Harris, and SS Vaughn Grissom, and trades for Matt Olson and Sean Murphy.