Wednesday afternoon Baseball America updated their organizational rankings and the Rays rocketed up the list to number two. This winter the Rays were ranked 11th best farm system in the majors.

This season the Rays have graduated a lot of talent to the major league level, like Jake Bauers, Christian Arroyo, Ryan Yarbrough, Yonny Chirinos, and multiple relievers like Diego Castillo, Ryne Stanek, and Jose Alvarado.

Baseball America has seven Rays ranked in their most recent top 100 (with first baseman Jake Bauers graduated from the list):

#9 Willy Adames, SS

#17 Brent Honeywell, RHP

#20 Wander Franco, SS

#35 Brendan McKay, 1B/LHP

#41 Jesus Sanchez, OF

#74 Matthew Liberatore, LHP

#79 Ronaldo Hernandez, C

Willy Adames has already surpassed his rookie limits and has thus been deemed ineligible to the MLB.com top 100. He’s an elite prospect and the farm ranking will take a hit due to his graduation, but there have been multiple high level breakouts this year.

Wander Franco and Ronaldo Hernandez have came on strong and put themselves in multiple top 100 lists. It’s quite possible that this winter could see Franco crack some top 10s with top 5 not being out of question. As a 17-year-old crushing it stateside this would be a great development for the farm system to further grow a potential elite talent.

Brandon Lowe and Nathan Lowe have seen two of the largest breakouts in the high minors with their respective bats.

The Rays have done great work in adding talent like Matthew Liberatore, Shane McClanahan, and Nick Schnell in this year’s draft without having a top 10 pick. Wander Franco’s stateside debut has been nothing short of magical and been a big shot in the arm to the system.

The most impressive part of strong system is that it’s this good even without the return netted in the Chris Archer trade. Neither Tyler Glasnow or Austin Meadows were eligible for these prospect lists. They are young controllable talent that is MLB ready and were highly rated prospects the last time they were eligible. The Rays will likely add a very good prospect as the PTBNL within a month, and is rumored to be a “top 100 caliber talent” by Jim Callis at MLB.com.

Baseball America said, “This is a system loaded with future big league bats with an impressive amount of projectable pitchers as well.” Rays fans have seen the first wave of talent crash on the majors and should have subsequent waves impacting the major league club in the very near future.