I agree with emk, the system is deep but not much top-end talent like a Bryant, Correa, Russell, etc type.
Albies may be good but he doesnt have alot of pop in his bat.
I completely disagree that we don't have a lot of top-end talent. We don't have a lot of top-end
prospects, but we have plenty of talent, and there is a difference.
Much of our top talent is too young and unproven to register at the top of prospect lists at this point. And certainly, with that youth and inexperience comes more risk of them busting. This is why their prospect status is not as high. But that does
not mean we don't have a lot of top-end talent. It just has yet to be seen whether that talent develops into productivity at higher levels. But when I talk about us having a lot of depth (and I think most people who rank us highly on farm system rankings agree), I'm talking about the depth of real talent, not depth in that we have a lot of guys who will just play some small role in the majors, like a Kyle Kubitza.
At 18 years old, Russell wasn't a top-100 prospect. At 19, he just barely cracked the top 50...but he had all the elite talent he has currently, he just needed to develop and prove himself at higher levels. Same with many of our prospects.
Newcomb, Allard, Albies, Touki, Riley, Sims, Fried, Acuna, Yepez, Soroka, Herbert, Davidson, Ruiz...all of these guys absolutely have the kind of talent that could eventually land them near the top of prospect ranking lists. Of course they won't all get there, which is why we can't yet call them top
prospects...but they absolutely have top talent.
I just think there is a big difference between not having top-end talent and not having top-end prospects yet...and while we don't yet have many of the latter, we do have the former. The farm system, as it currently stands, even without adding any additional players,
could absolutely give us a true contending team in time. It will take a while, but the talent is there.