Rays Rightfully See Significant Drop in Farm System Rankings

Why did the Tampa Bay Rays see a drop in a recent farm system rankings?

Aug 26, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash (16) stands in the dugout in the first inning against the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field. | David Richard-Imagn Images

With the 2025 season coming to an end for the Tampa Bay Rays, they will be heading into what should be an interesting offseason. With the sale of the team coming up soon, it will be important to monitor how this affects how the offseason is managed by the front office. 

Overall, the Rays didn’t accomplish their ultimate goal of making the playoffs, but there were some positives for the team. Tampa Bay is a franchise that typically goes through some waves of being able to compete without spending. 

A major reason for them being able to accomplish that is because of how well of a job they do managing the farm system. With the team missing the playoffs for the past two years, they are in one of those stretches that they are trying to develop some young players. Unfortunately, that didn’t go according to plan this year. 

Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report recently wrote about his farm systems power rankings from the beginning of the season compared to the end of the season. For the Rays, they saw a somewhat significant and concerning drop from fourth to 10th. 

Drop Is Concerning

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While some teams saw their rankings change because of players either being promoted or traded, Tampa Bay saw their farm system take a hit because of the struggles of some of their top prospects. This is a unit that has a lot of talent, but that high-end talent seemingly regressed. 

While by no means should the Rays completely panic about some of their prospects not playing great, they would have certainly liked to see them perform better. One of the reasons for the drop was their former top prospect in the rankings Carson Williams, dropping from a tier one prospect to a tier three player. 

Williams having a poor season in the minor leagues was a bit blow to the system, but he wasn’t alone. Xavier Isaac also saw a significant drop from tier two to tier four. Fortunately, even though they might have seen some of their top prospects drop due to poor performances, they do still have a plethora of talent in the system and have a Top 10 unit overall. 

As Tampa Bay hopes to get back into contention in 2026, they will be continuing to follow the formula that has worked for them in years past. Hopefully, some of their top prospects are able to turn things around and they will be able to have a better 2026 campaign.