They’ve been ranking the 30 MLB franchises at fangraphs.com, and their ranking for the Cincinnati Reds was revealed Monday at #20 between the Oakland A’s (19) and Detroit Tigers (21). They examined the Reds current major league talent, and their future major league talent.
Being optimistic about the future of the organization, the low ranking was disappointing at first. The author acknowledges that it was hard to rate the Reds.
The Reds are one of the teams that was really hard to slot on this list. On one hand, I like a lot of the young players in the Reds system. There’s a solid core of home grown players to build around, including a couple of All-Stars in Joey Votto and Jay Bruce. The outfield is as deep as it is talented, and the infield is home to the team’s best current players. There are a lot of things going right in Cincinnati.
However, from a non-fan perspective, we have an organization that hasn’t had a winning season in 9 years. We do have a relatively high ranked minor league system compared to past seasons, but the only prospect to have burst out with all-star type results over a full season so far has been Joey Votto. The Reds will need to post a winning season and have more prospects produce at higher levels to begin to make believers of those outside of Cincinnati.