The 2018 Major League season has officially come to a close. That means it’s time to give my official top-30 prospect rankings for the Boston Red Sox.
The Boston Red Sox having a weak minor league system is a tired narrative. Every team has plenty of diamonds that haven’t been discovered yet. Just because they don’t possess a lot of big names doesn’t mean the talent isn’t there.
You could argue that this is the case with the Red Sox, as they entered 2018 with only two top-100 prospects. At the same time, you could argue that some prospects have emerged this season, and others haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve.
MLB has their list of top-30 prospects for each team. Anyone that’s read my articles before probably knows that I have a beef with these lists though.
With that in mind, I’ve compiled my own top-30 prospect list for the Red Sox. Now, I don’t have the same resources as the MLB scouts do. I do, however, have no life – and I use that to my advantage by watching as much MiLB baseball as possible. Seriously, if you’re interested in prospects and minor league baseball in general, the MiLB.tv package is awesome.
Through my hours-upon-hours of watching minor league games for the past few years, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are quite a few glaring absences from the Red Sox top-30 list. There are also some players already ranked in the top-30 but not where they should be.
Keep in mind that this isn’t meant as a slight towards any players. I’m incredibly high on a number of minor leaguers in the Red Sox system that didn’t make my top-30 list. The problem is simply that while 30 may seem like a lot, in the grand scheme of things it’s not at all. The number of levels in the minor leagues grants for teams to carry hundreds of prospects.
This is simply the 30 best prospects in my opinion, not the only 30 that I think are good.