Rising to No. 1 in the farm system rankings

They are No. 1. The Orioles have the top farm system in all of Major League Baseball. They do according to both ESPN, which listed them atop its rankings in mid-February, and according to MLBPipeline.com, which rated the O’s No. 1 when updating its rankings earlier this week.

When Baseball America released its latest organizational ratings in January, the Orioles were rated at No. 4. They are No. 10 in the latest rankings via The Athletic.

When it comes to MLBPipeline.com, they first ranked the Orioles No. 1 late last August and kept them there in the newest update this week. The club has been on a steady rise in the last couple of years. In the 2020 MLBPipeline.com preseason rankings, the O’s farm was No. 13 and moved to No. 8 by midseason. Before the 2021 season, they got the No. 5 ranking and then moved to the top spot, which they now continue to hold.

In response to several questions I have been getting if the Orioles were ever No. 1 previously in these rankings, they were not.

“The Orioles are obviously struggling at the big league level, but the farm system is headed in the right direction,” MLBPipeline.com analyst Jim Callis said last summer when the club first moved to No. 1. “They have the best prospect in baseball in Adley Rutschman, who is the best catching prospect I have seen in three decades of covering prospects. They also have the game’s best pitching prospect in Grayson Rodriguez. They have built nice depth, especially in terms of position players.”

Now fans wait for farm rankings to translate into major league wins. No, there are not any guarantees of that, but when I talked to Callis over the winter about this topic, he had some interesting background to point to.

“Since we started doing this (the organizational rankings), the Cubs won a World Series (in 2016) and they were No. 1 preseason 2015. The Red Sox won (in 2018) and they were midseason 2015. Dodgers won a World Series (in 2020) and they were on top in 2016,” Callis said. “Next team was the Brewers. They haven’t won the World Series, but have a long streak of some playoff success. Then it was the Braves, who just won a World Series. White Sox haven’t, but they are on the rise. It was the Padres four years in a row. This year (2021) was not great, but they’re on the rise. Then it was Tampa Bay - three rankings in a row and they went to a World Series.

“Before we started official rankings, I wrote that the Astros had the best farm system around 2013 or ‘14, even though it was not an official ranking. Baseball America has been ranking systems since like ‘83 or ‘84. The only team of these two places I have worked at that had the No. 1 farm system that didn’t like make the playoffs within a couple years and have some success was the ‘97 or ‘98 Pirates. They are the exception. The others pretty much went on to have a nice run because of it.”

And that certainly is the hope around Birdland.

Callis told me he feels the Orioles may not contend this year - that would be a huge surprise - but this could be the season they start to finally turn a corner, leading to much better days.

“I don’t think that 2022 is going to be the year we talk about the Orioles returning to contention,” he said. “But catch a couple of breaks with pitching and you know they might sneak up on some people in 2023. When you talk about the teams having one of the top farm systems in baseball, those teams often contend like a year earlier than you expect. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Orioles, especially with expanded playoffs, make a run in 2023. They could be a very entertaining and interesting club.”

Spring notes: The Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers 2-0 in a rain-shortened game on Saturday afternoon, their latest win in the Grapefruit League. The Orioles are 8-5-2 overall with four games to play and are 5-1-1 in their past seven games.

As a team, they have scored 79 runs in 15 games with a spring team batting line of .248/.339/.445 and an OPS of .784 to rank eighth among all American League clubs.

The Orioles have drawn 63 walks and that is tops among AL clubs in spring games and second among all major league clubs to the Cubs with 66.

John Means, the opening day starter, pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings yesterday on 71 pitches in Lakeland, Fla. Over his past two spring games, Means has allowed one earned run over 7 2/3 innings with no walks and five strikeouts.

Last night, the Orioles reached agreement with Trey Mancini on a 2022 contract to avoid an arbitration hearing. The team and player have a mutual option for a contract in 2023. Read more here.