Pittsburgh Pirates Ranked 4th in Baseball Prospectus

Gerrit Cole flashes the Zoltan (ForbestoFederal GIF)

The Pittsburgh Pirates were given the fourth best Major League Baseball team ranking for talent under the age of 25 years old by Baseball Prospectus. The top three teams are all National League teams with the St. Louis Cardinals grabbing the top honors followed by the Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves.  The rankings look at the top ten players in each organization born after 4/1/1988 which is actually 25 years before the de facto opening of the 2014 regular season.

The Cardinals continue to amaze me as seven of their players under the age of 25 have made their MLB debut.   The Nationals have four such players while seven Braves have also stepped on the big stage already.  Three Pirates have made their Major League debut and of course Jameson Taillon and Gregory Polanco are expected to make the leap to the majors sometime this season.

The method for ranking the teams is detailed on the site and we encourage you to check it out. lar sections on the individual team lists, the top 10 talents in the organization

1. Gerrit Cole (23)
2. Starling Marte (25)
3. Jameson Taillon (22)
4. Gregory Polanco (22)
5. Tyler Glasnow (20)
6. Reese McGuire (19)
7. Josh Bell (21)
8. Nick Kingham (22)
9. Austin Meadows (18)
10. Jose Tabata (25)

Made MLB Debut? 3
Farm System Ranking: 3
Top 10 Prospects: Link
Prospects on the BP 101: 7
Top Prospect: Jameson Taillon

The summary is written by Steffan Segui who speaks highly of the system. Check out complete link here