When you consider what the Rangers have done in recent years with their farm system — trading several top prospects last year for Cole Hamels and going several years recently without a high draft pick with the exception of last year — to have their farm system ranked highly is quite a testament.
But that's exactly what happened with the latest release of farm system rankings by ESPN's Keith Law, who knows farm systems about as well as anyone out there.
Law ranked the Rangers at No. 9 (Insider access required), just ahead of Boston and just behind Pittsburgh and listed the obvious for his reasoning. It all starts up top, and the Rangers have three of the top position player prospects in baseball in slugger Joey Gallo and outfielders Nomar Mazara and Lewis Brinson.
They also have two highly regarded, young starting pitchers in Dillon Tate and Luis Ortiz, though Tate looks to projecting more toward a late-relief role at the moment.
Either way, that list of five names is basically enough to get the Rangers into the top 10 even after trading several top prospects for Hamels last July.
