All of which was really to say that Cincinnati has a lot of ground to make up against the best teams in their own division, and probably still does. The Reds’ plan is to build through the farm system. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel has released the 2026 Farm System rankings and the club doesn’t stack particularly well with most of the division.
The Brewers have been the best team in the division for the past decade. They have won the fourth division in the last five years, finished second the other season and made the play-offs in seven of the last eight years. ESPN has them as the team with the best farm system in baseball. And they don’t think it’s particularly close either. Another team from the division – the Pittsburgh Pirates – sits third on the list. A third team from the division also ranks in the top 10, with the St. Louis Cardinals coming in at ninth.
To find the Reds you have to go all the way to the middle of the list, as they come in at 15th. Only the Chicago Cubs rank lower when it comes to the division, and they rank well below the 25th spot on the list.
To determine the value of each farm system, McDaniel used the prospect values derived from previous prospect rankings and how the players at each rank on the scouting scale ultimately went on to produce in the future. The survey is a bit outdated now and was last updated in 2018 at Fangraphs, but overall it still gives us a good idea of the order in which teams should be.
Let’s see how all the teams fare based on their value:
I’ve given the teams within the National League Central their team color on the map, so you can see where everyone falls and what the value – in millions of dollars – is to each organization.
McDaniel’s list of top prospects goes up to 200. When you look at the Reds who made that list and compare them to the top three teams in the division, you can see the difference. Cincinnati’s top prospect, Sal Stewart, went 17th overall. The Pirates had the best prospects in all of baseball and a second player ahead of Stewart. The Brewers had third place in baseball. St. Louis had seventh place, followed by another man just two spots behind Stewart. The three teams ahead of them all have a “better” prospect than the Reds.
Cincinnati had six prospects on the top 200 list. The Brewers had twelve. The Pirates had nine. And St. Louis had eight. Those clubs had better top prospects and they also had more depth.
Reds fans may be tempted to point to a guy like Chase Burns, who is ineligible for this list after losing prospect status at the end of 2025, to note that the farm system is missing a big young player. And that’s true. But the Brewers had Jackson Chourio and Jacob Misiorowski in a very similar boat. Burns isn’t even a full year younger than Paul Skenes.
The big league club still has a lot of catching up to do if they want to win the division. But the agricultural system also appears to be lagging behind much of the division. And that’s probably not a good combination, since unlike the Chicago Cubs, who have a very poor farm system, their ownership group isn’t spending a lot of money to make up for at least some of the holes in their roster.
#Reds #farm #system #match #division #foes #Redleg #Nation