Padres farm system ranked 20th by Keith Law

ESPN's Keith Law has posted his yearly rankings of the farm systems with a brief blurb with his reasoning.  He has the Atlanta Braves ranked first and the Angels in dead last with every other team somewhere in between.  The Padres are ranked 20th, falling from 18th last year, mostly due to the destruction of their farm last offseason when they tried to cash in all of their chips and win at the Major League level.   They were given a bit of a bump due to Preller's attempt to rebuild the farm this offseason by trading Craig Kimbrel to Boston.  These are story lines that Padres fans are familiar with, so basically we're just finding out where our farm fits in with others around the league.

Keith Law's farm system rankings for 2016 - MLB

This year's draft will be huge for them, as they have three picks in the first 27 and six in the first 85.

It is kind of interesting to note that the Padres are ranked better than the Giants (21) and Diamondbacks (24) in the National League West.  The Dodgers (2) and the Rockies (7) have far superior rankings like you might expect.

The Padres have proven over the last 5 years that even having a high ranking in the past doesn't equate to wins on a MLB field.  In 2012 they were top ranked by Keith Law and didn't take advantage of that in any way.