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The wave of preseason prospect and organization rankings continued on Wednesday with the release of ESPN's Keith Law's ranking of the top organizations in baseball (Insider Access only).
It should come as no surprise that, after a year of big trades and an influx of young talent into the organization not seen in some time, the Phillies are in a much better spot than they were last year.
Law ranked the Phils sixth overall.
The Cole Hamels trade might turn out to be the Phillies' Herschel Walker moment, trading their best asset for a huge package of prospects who look like they'll boost the major league club for years to come. The next step is maximizing their output from this year's draft, in which they hold the first overall pick.
For those who weren't born when the famed Herschel Walker trade went down between the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings in October of 1989, it involved 18 players and draft picks, and was largely seen as the deal that launched the Dallas dynasty of the early 1990s.
It is an amazing climb for the Phillies. Last year Law ranked them 25th in baseball, a jump of 19 spots. Only the Brewers, who leaped from 28th to fourth, had a better year-over-year improvement.
Law's Top 100 prospects are still to come, but in his organizational rankings write-up, he notes the Phils will have five Top 100 players on his list.
The top farm system in baseball belongs to the Atlanta Braves, according to Law, mainly thanks to several lopsided trades with the Arizona Diamondbacks over the last year, including one that netted them last year's top overall pick, Dansby Swanson.
The loaded Los Angeles Dodgers come in at No. 2, with the Minnesota Twins at No. 3, the Chicago Cubs at No. 4 and the Milwaukee Brewers at No. 5.
At the bottom of the list was the Los Angeles Angels, who Law blistered in his analysis.
I've been doing these rankings for eight years now, and this is by far the worst system I've ever seen. They traded their top two prospects in the Andrelton Simmons deal and had no one remotely close to top-100 status. They need a big draft this year to start to restock the system or we're going to start talking about whether it's time to trade Mike Trout.
Trading Mike Trout. Let those words linger for a moment.