Diamondbacks farm system shows dramatic improvement
Mar 22, 2012, 6:08 PM | Updated: 8:15 pm
What a difference a year can make.
All the way back in 2011, Baseball America ranked the Diamondbacks’
farm system as the 22nd-best in all of baseball.
Not good.
Things are different now, though, as the same site ranks Arizona’s farm system
fourth, behind only Texas, Kansas City and San Diego.
The D-backs can attribute the rise largely to the 2011
draft, which saw them take both Trevor Bauer and Archie
Bradley in the first round. Incidentally, the two are the team’s highest rated prospects.
However, one look at the prospect rankings could determine
that sometimes the greatest contributions come from the
unlikeliest of places.
To wit: Neither Paul Goldschmidt nor Josh Collmenter
ranked among the team’s top 10 prospects in each of the
last two years, yet both were instrumental in the team
winning the NL West in 2011.
But, if the Diamondbacks are to repeat as division champs
and maybe go even further, they’ll likely need
contributions from the next crop of prospects, including
pitchers Bauer, Tyler Skaggs and Patrick Corbin, and
possibly infielders Matt Davidson and Bobby Borchering.
No matter who will make an impact at the major league
level next, the fact that the Diamondbacks’ farm system is
now one of the game’s best — after recently being one of
the worst — is a testament to the job done by Jerry
Dipoto, Kevin Towers and co.
