Experts are split on how good the Reds farm system is

The folks at both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline both released their updated farm system rankings on the same day and both publications placed the Cincinnati Reds in the Top 10 in Major League Baseball. That would seem to imply that the farm system is quite strong according to both.

But as with many things – the devil is in the details. MLB Pipeline’s list has the Reds coming in at the #8 spot. That’s up from the #11 spot they held before the season began. And they have the team with six top 100 prospects. Over at Baseball America they have Cincinnati at #10 on their list and have them with four prospects in the top 100.

So where is this “devil in the details”, you ask? Well the folks at MLB Pipeline to not count Chase Burns as a prospect, while the crew at Baseball America does. That’s a rather big difference because having one of the top prospects in baseball weighs very heavily on a farm system ranking. Why does one count Burns and the other doesnt? Ease. To be a “prospect” a player must be eligible for the next year’s Rookie of the Year. That means a position player must have fewer than 130 MLB at-bats and a pitcher must have fewer than 50 innings pitched. But there’s also the less-often in play part where a player who has more than 45 days on the active big league roster is also ineligible.

For Chase Burns – this is where he gets caught. He hasn’t thrown 50 innings in the big leagues yet, but he does have more than 45 days in the big leagues. MLB Pipeline counted the days and said “he’s not eligible”, where as Baseball America didn’t and just looked at the innings pitched and said “he’s eligible”.

I need to point out before I go any further that I am the Cincinnati Reds farm system  correspondent for Baseball America. Each month during the season and several times during the offseason I write an article about a player in their farm system for the publication. With that said I am never involved in their prospect rankings, be it directly or indirectly (as in I’m never asked for my opinion on players talents or skillsets or even “what have you heard” kind of questions from those involved in their rankings).

But I have also been covering the Reds farm system since January of 2006 – which makes this my 20th year doing so. During that time I have seen a whole lot of prospect rankings, I have been involved in national publication rankings for other outlets, and I’ve dissected and studied many of them over the years.

Which gets back to the headline here – there’s a split in just how good the farm system is. MLB Pipeline has the Reds rated higher than Baseball America does by two spots and they are not including Chase Burns. Baseball America is including Chase Burns and has the system ranked lower. If you were to take away Burns from the system, it’s very likely that the Reds fall from their #10 spot to somewhere closer to the #20 spot than the #10 spot. Losing an elite-level prospect is a big deal because one guy ranked in the top 10 is generally more valuable than having two guys ranked in the #50-100 range on a top 100 list. Sometimes it’s worth three guys in that range depending exactly where they fall.

All of that to say that there is probably a rather big gap between what MLB Pipeline and Baseball America think about the quality of the Reds farm system right now even if on the surface they seem to think it’s a strong, but not great system.

Does this matter all that much? Yes, but also no. When it comes to Chase Burns specifically, it doesn’t really matter. The Reds aren’t going to be trading him and the biggest reason for farm systems is to provide a direct talent pipeline to the big league club. Eligible for prospect lists or not, Chase Burns is going to be in the big leagues for the Reds for the foreseeable future.

But it does matter outside of Burns a little bit, too. No organization is going to see the farm system exactly the same as others. One of the other big reasons for a farm system is to have players you can use in trades to bring in talent from the outside to supplement what you already have. And that’s where this does matter. An organization that has a feeling about where the Cincinnati farm system is at that’s more in line with what MLB Pipeline believes will likely be able to find a deal that works more than an organization who sees the Reds farm system closer to the way Baseball America does – which is a worse farm system even if it does include an elite level prospect like Burns.