Cardinals: Farm system ranked top 3 in all of baseball for 2023, let's review

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The Cardinals boast one of the best farm systems in all of baseball in 2023

The St. Louis Cardinals are fresh off winning the National League Central title and look ready to compete once again for a playoff run in 2023. Few teams in baseball have the luxury of being a legit contender while boasting an incredible farm system, yet St. Louis is one of them.

In their "free agency edition" of their farm system rankings for 2023, Bleacher Report had the Cardinals ranked as the 3rd best farm system in all of baseball, only behind the Baltimore Orioles and Los Angeles Dodgers.

In their rankings, they divided prospects into three tiers. Tier 1 prospects had elite skill sets, and All-Star potential, and were top 100 prospects. Tier 2 prospects have a good chance of becoming impact players but were not quite top 100 guys. Tier 3 prospects were either too raw to tell or were projected to be league-average players at best. In their rankings, they had the Cardinals boasting five Tier 1 players, three Tier 2 players, and one Tier 3 inside the Cardinals' top 10 prospects.

I think it is important to note how many contenders lack the kind of farm system the Cardinals currently have. Just in the National League, the Braves rank 30th, the Phillies 26th, the Padres 24th, the Brewers 19th, and the Mets are 8th. Yes, the Braves just graduated so many of their top guys and the Padres went out and traded for a guy like Soto, but its a major advantage for St. Louis to have the farm system they currently have, while also having valuable youngsters like Lars Nootbaar, Brendan Donovan, Nolan Gorman, and Dylan Carlson graduated as well.

Bleacher Report is not alone in viewing the Cardinals' farm system this way. MLB.com ranks six Cardinals prospects in their top 100, and although Baseball America has not released theirs yet for 2023, they had seven Cardinals in the top 100 in their mid-season rankings in 2022. It's safe to say baseball sees a lot of potential in the Cardinals' youngsters.

Let's look at each of the Tier rankings Bleacher Report had for the Cardinals and how each of them is projecting going into 2023.