There’s a common theme among the various Major League Baseball prospect rankings that have been released leading up to the 2016 season: The Boston Red Sox’s farm system is in good shape.
Baseball America released its annual preseason top 100 prospects list over the weekend, and the Red Sox again were painted in a positive light. Four Red Sox farmhands ranked among B.A.’s top 19 prospects, with Yoan Moncada leading the way as the No. 3 prospect in all of baseball.
Only Corey Seager of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins ranked higher than Moncada, who signed for $31.5 million — Boston also paid a 100 percent tax — last spring training. Baseball America pointed to 2017 as the Cuban infielder’s big league ETA.
Moncada is joined in Baseball America’s top 20 by fellow Sox farmhands Andrew Benintendi (No. 15), Rafael Devers (No. 18) and Anderson Espinoza (No. 19). Michael Kopech also cracked the top 100, checking in at No. 89 overall.
Obviously, this bodes well for the Red Sox’s future. It’s also rather amazing that the Red Sox’s farm system still is so deep with talent even after trading two top-100 prospects — Javier Guerra (No. 52) and Manuel Margot (No. 56) — to the San Diego Padres earlier this offseason in a deal for All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel.
According to Baseball America’s organizational talent rankings, the Red Sox have MLB’s fourth-best farm system.
