The Red Sox are heading into the 2021 season with the 20th-ranked farm system in baseball according to Baseball America. That’s the same ranking they received going into the 2020 campaign as well.
Despite finishing with the fourth-worst record in baseball last year at 24-36, the 2020 season did net some positives for the Sox in terms of producing new, young, and controllable talent.
Just in terms of prospects, Boston acquired the likes of right-hander Connor Seabold from the Phillies, right-hander Jacob Wallace from the Rockies, and infielder Hudson Potts and outfielder Jeisson Rosario from the Padres.
They also drafted infielders Nick Yorke and Blaze Jordan and righties Shane Drohan and Jeremy Wu-Yelland with their four picks in last year’s amateur draft.
From the time the 2021 season ended until now, the Sox have added the likes of catcher Ronaldo Hernandez, infielders Christian Koss and Nick Sogard, right-handers Garrett Whitlock, Frank German, Josh Winckowski, and Zach Bryant.
To put it simply, Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom has not only addressed his club’s depth at the major-league level; he’s done it on the minor-league side of things as well.
Taking that point into consideration, it would not be too shocking to see Boston rise through the farm system rankings this year, especially with someone like Yorke getting to play in actual, organized minor-league games at some point.
Having written all that, I would like to present to you who the experts believe are the top prospects in the Red Sox organization at the moment.
To compile this list of Boston’s brightest and youngest talent, I took prospect lists from four baseball or Red Sox-centered publications — Baseball America, SoxProspects.com, FanGraphs, MLB Pipeline — and took the averages of where each of these sites had particular prospects ranked.
For example, Triston Casas was regarded as the Sox’ top prospect by three sites, but the other had him as their No. 2 prospect in the system.
With those numbers in mind, I added 1+1+1+2 to get 5, then divided that number by the total number of sources (4) to get Casas’ average ranking: 1.25, which rounds down to 1.
I hope that makes sense, because here are the top 37 prospects in the Red Sox farm system based off that math heading into the 2021 season.
| Prospect | Baseball America | SoxProspects | FanGraphs | MLB Pipeline | Average Rank |
| Triston Casas | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Jeter Downs | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Bryan Mata | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
| Jarren Duran | 5 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 4 |
| Bobby Dalbec | 3 | 6 | 9 | 3 | 5 |
| Gilberto Jimenez | 7 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 6 |
| Tanner Houck | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 |
| Jay Groome | 6 | 12 | 12 | 8 | 8 |
| Thaddeus Ward | 10 | 8 | 13 | 10 | 9 |
| Noah Song | 12 | 11 | 5 | 14 | 10 |
| Connor Seabold | 11 | 9 | 8 | 15 | 11 |
| Nick Yorke | 9 | 13 | 15 | 9 | 12 |
| Ronaldo Hernandez | N/A | 14 | N/A | 12 | 13 |
| Brainer Bonaci | 18 | 15 | 17 | 16 | 14 |
| Aldo Ramirez | 22 | 10 | 14 | 20 | 15 |
| Blaze Jordan | 16 | 20 | 21 | 11 | 16 |
| Matthew Lugo | 14 | 17 | 28 | 13 | 17 |
| Brayan Bello | 19 | 23 | 11 | 19 | 18 |
| Connor Wong | 15 | 22 | 19 | 17 | 19 |
| Jeisson Rosario | 20 | 16 | 16 | 22 | 20 |
| Hudson Potts | 24 | 18 | 18 | 24 | 21 |
| Eduard Bazardo | 28 | 27 | 10 | 28 | 22 |
| Chris Murphy | 13 | 19 | 43 | 18 | 23 |
| Jonathan Arauz | 21 | 26 | N/A | N/A | 24 |
| Nick Decker | 29 | 21 | 24 | 23 | 25 |
| Jacob Wallace | 25 | 24 | 26 | 29 | 26 |
| Frank German | N/A | 28 | 25 | N/A | 27 |
| Garrett Whitlock | 17 | 32 | 30 | 30 | 28 |
| Chih-Jung Liu | 23 | 34 | 33 | 21 | 29 |
| Durbin Feltman | N/A | 30 | 31 | N/A | 30 |
| Cameron Cannon | N/A | 43 | 23 | 26 | 31 |
| Ryan Zeferjahn | N/A | 25 | 38 | N/A | 32 |
| Jorge Rodriguez | N/A | 29 | 34 | N/A | 33 |
| Juan Chacon | N/A | 52 | 22 | 25 | 34 |
| A.J. Politi | 27 | 49 | 37 | 27 | 35 |
| Ceddanne Rafaela | 26 | 45 | N/A | N/A | 36 |
| Jeremy Wu-Yelland | 30 | N/A | 47 | N/A | 37 |
All in all, it’s not too shocking to see Casas, Jeter Downs, Bryan Mata, Jarren Duran, and Bobby Dalbec come in as the Red Sox’ top five prospects, though Dalbec is surely going to graduate from his prospect status this year.
The same can be said about right-hander Tanner Houck, who comes in at No. 7 on this list.
Other names worth mentioning include outfielder Gilberto Jimenez (No. 6), right-hander Noah Song (No. 10), infielder Brainer Bonaci (No. 14), catcher Connor Wong (No. 19), right-hander Eduard Bazardo (No. 22), right-hander Chih-Jung Liu (No. 29), and outfielder Juan Chacon (No. 34).
One notable snub on here would be 17-year-old outfielder Miguel Bleis, who the Red Sox recently signed out of the Dominican Republic for $1.5 million back in January.
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Because I made this list myself, I cannot say with certainty that it is perfect. But, I enjoyed compiling the information to create it, and I hope it can serve as some use to those who find this sort of thing interesting.
(Picture of Jarren Duran: Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)
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