Rays Shockingly Receive Poor Farm System Ranking Heading into 2026

Should the Tampa Bay Rays receive a poor ranking for the overall strength of their farm system?

Dec 17, 2019; Tampa, FL, USA; Tampa Bay Rays Sr. Vice President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Erik Neander talks during a press conference at Tropicana Field. | Kim Klement-Imagn Images

It has been a very busy offseason for the Tampa Bay Rays, who are hoping to be able to contend in 2026. While that might be a lofty goal, the franchise is also trying to keep an eye toward the future. 

The Rays are one of the few teams in baseball that year after year can remain competitive while keeping a vision for the long-term. Due to the low payroll, Tampa Bay has to be able to call up and bring in young controllable talent in order to compete. 

As shown by the rest of the division this year, the American League East is going to be a group that spends a lot of money on free agents to improve. While the Rays will hope to increase spending in the near future with a new stadium and ownership group, they will have to operate like they have until then. 

Generally speaking, Tampa Bay has one of the best farm systems in baseball. This winter, they made a couple of moves that figured to improve the unit, with Brandon Lowe and Shane Baz being dealt for a plethora of new young players. However, despite adding a lot of talent, the franchise didn’t receive a strong ranking just recently. 

Keith Law of The Athletic (subscription required) recently ranked all of the farm systems in baseball. For the Rays, they were shockingly ranked 16th amongst their peers, which is not an encouraging sign. 

Poor Farm System Ranking is Concerning

Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Carson Williams | Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images

The ranking of 16th for Tampa Bay is not an encouraging sign and is rather shocking. One of the main reasons behind it is the lack of top-tier prospects that the franchise has. Even though there is a good amount of depth in the organization, the unit overall seems to be getting knocked down without any potential star power. 

While Carson Williams has been widely regarded as the best prospect in the system, it was Theo Gillen who was mentioned as the player with the best chance of becoming a star. 

Furthermore, Law also spoke about Tampa Bay's recent misses on first-round picks being a problem for the franchise and one of the reasons why they are lacking top-end talent. While having top-end talent is good, so is depth, and that might be getting overlooked in these rankings. The Rays are a team that is very good at evaluating talent and developing it, and they will need to seemingly do more of that to get their ranking up.