Every year, ESPN's Keith Law reveals a variety of personal rankings of baseball's prospects, including a ranking of all 30 organizations in terms of farm system talent. His 2012 version of those organizational rankings came out on Wednesday, and the Chicago Cubs placed No. 20 among the sport's 30 teams.
For each team, Law leaves a comment on the farm system, and he was concise about the Cubs:
An unfairly maligned system, in my opinion -- not a great system, but not a disastrous one. And I say that as someone who's relatively bearish on some of the Cubs' more famous prospects.
Among the prospects that Law has famously been low on is top outfielder prospect Matt Szczur, ranked as the third-best prospect in the Cubs' system by Baseball America. Chicago's other top prospects include first baseman Anthony Rizzo, outfielder Brett Jackson, infielder Javier Baez and pitchers Trey McNutt and Dillon Maples.
Clearly, it's obvious that the Cubs' new baseball operations team has a lot of work to do. Even after acquiring some new prospects like Rizzo, second baseman Ronald Torreyes, outfielder Dave Sappelt, and pitchers Zach Cates and Casey Weathers, Chicago still isn't in the top half of all farm systems according to Law.
For more on the White Sox prospects and world of minor league baseball, drop by Minor League Ball with John Sickels. Stay tuned to SB Nation Chicago for more White Sox news and notes.