The Boston Red Sox's pipeline is trending in the right direction.
The Athletic's Keith Law still has questions about Boston's batch of prospects, though, and therefore listed the Red Sox at No. 20 in his farm system rankings ahead of the 2022 Major League Baseball season.
Here's what Law wrote about the Red Sox's system in a piece published Monday:
It certainly doesn't hurt when your much-maligned first-rounder from 2020 goes all Tony Gwynn on the minors and you then land the best player in the 2021 draft class while picking fourth. It hurt a bit more to have two of the team's top hitting prospects endure disappointing years that at least raised some doubts about their hit tools. There's more pitching on the horizon than there's been in this system for a long time -- they haven't drafted/signed and developed a major-league starter since Clay Buchholz, whom they drafted in 2005.
Law clearly thinks highly of the Red Sox's two most recent first-round picks, Nick Yorke and Marcelo Mayer. Boston selected Yorke at No. 17 overall in 2020 -- which many experts thought was a reach at the time -- and Mayer at No. 4 overall in 2021. Yorke was excellent last season with Single-A Salem and High-A Greenville, while Mayer has the tools to someday become a star at the major league level.
Law's hesitation to bump up the Red Sox from No. 20 -- the same spot they occupied on his list in 2021 -- stems from the regression shown last season by two of Boston's top hitting prospects, presumably Jeter Downs and Jarren Duran. Perhaps a bounce-back from those two in 2022, along with continued development elsewhere, will lead to a higher ranking down the road.
For what it's worth, Baseball America recently listed the Red Sox at No. 11 on its own organizational rankings, a jump from No. 21 last season and No. 30 in 2019.
