Over the last three days, Keith Law has been posting his rankings of each team's farm system around baseball. Friday morning he unveiled the top ten teams and rated the Pittsburgh Pirates as having the fourth best system. The Pirates trail the Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees and San Diego Padres on his list.
Law had the Pirates ranked eighth last year. He noted that their top five prospects from this time last year all returned to the list this year, so they maintained that strength and had some players breakout. I'll note that he didn't have Jameson Taillon is his top five going into last year like everyone else, but his own top five of Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, Josh Bell, Kevin Newman and Ke'Bryan Hayes should all ranked close to where they were last year at this time.