The Kansas City Royals’ minor league system was ranked by Baseball America as the best in baseball in 2011.

Nine of the team’s prospects were deemed to be among the top 100 in baseball. Names like Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Danny Duffy. Among the Royal’s top 30 prospects were Yordano Ventura, Salvador Perez and Kelvin Herrera. In all, nine of the Royals’ top 30 prospects that year ended up winning World Series rings in 2015. Six of them were key contributors in both of the team’s World Series appearances in ’14 and ‘15.

Additionally, three top-30 prospects from that ‘11 class were traded to get James Shields, a big part of Kansas City’s 2014 team. And John Lamb, the Royals’ fourth-ranked prospect in 2011, was part of a trade at the 2015 deadline for Johnny Cueto, who was brilliant in winning two games for the Royals that postseason.

While there are no two championship road maps with the exact same benchmarks, this can easily be seen as an overlay for the course the Padres are traveling.


They have something more like the Boston Red Sox in mind, an extended window of championship contention, just without spending the extra $70 million or so each year.

But first things first. As in, the Padres need to get back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006 and then back to the World Series for the first time since 1998 and then win their first title ever.

That is why Padres Executive Chairman Ron Fowler often states his admiration for Royals owner David Glass – and how Glass entrusted G.M. Dayton Moore with building a major league champion whose core was players the organization drafted and signed as amateurs and developed into the team that ended a 30-year championship drought in its mid-sized MLB market.

So while Padres General Manager A.J. Preller frequently says “Our goal is not to have the No.1 farm system in the game,” it actually was one of his regime’s main goals. It is a steppingstone, the acquisition of cornerstones.


So it’s not for nothing that the Padres have the game’s consensus No.1 minor league system.

History foretells fortune

All of the Padres’ hopes, in fact, are built on the idea that a number of their highly touted prospects will be good enough in the major leagues to form the nucleus of a major league roster that can follow in the footsteps of the Royals, Red Sox, Cubs and Astros.

But the Padres have been to this particular place before. And it didn’t lead anywhere.

When celebrating that ESPN’s Keith Law last month ranked the Padres’ farm system No.1, it must be remembered the Padres topped his list in 2012 as well.


“…in terms of total future value of players likely to play significant roles in the big leagues, they’re ahead of everyone else,” Law wrote at the time. “Some of these players, especially from the 2011 draft, will develop into stars.”

Among the players Law listed among the Padres top-10 prospects in ‘12 were Casey Kelley, Rymer Liriano, Joe Wieland, Cory Spangenberg and Jaff Decker.

The 2011 Padres draft yielded Austin Hedges, Joe Ross, Jace Peterson, Matt Wisler, Kevin Quackenbush, Colin Rea, Burch Smith and Spangenberg. Only Hedges remains with the team. Of the Padres’ first 21 picks in that draft, 11 made the majors. Those 11 have an average WAR (wins above replacement) of 0.6, with Ross (3.9), Spangenberg (3.2) and Hedges (1.6) being the only ones above 1.0 WAR.

Baseball America ranked the Padres third that year, their last top-5 until they were ranked third again in 2018.


Therein lies one difference that makes the promise of this group’s potential seem as if it won’t be empty.

Not only are the Padres the No.1 system according to Baseball America, Law and MLB.com, Law had them No.3 last year while MLB.com ranked them second.

“You want to get to where you have one of the top three, four, five systems in the game three and four years in a row,” Preller said in 2016, back when he and his crew were beginning to amass this bounty of prospects. “Teams that do that, that’s when you see multiple playoff (appearances) and multiple World Series.”

History suggests the Padres will at least get a shot.


Among the 14 teams to have Baseball America’s top farm system between 2000 and ‘16, eight made the World Series within five seasons and four won a World Series. All but two advanced to a league championship series within five years, and all but one made multiple playoff appearances in the five years after being named No. 1. The Braves, who had the top system in 2017 and ’18, made the playoffs last year.

Focusing more recently, as teams have increasingly followed the building-from-within blueprint, six of the eight teams to have No.1 farm system since 2008 have made it to at least one World Series, and two won. Each of the past four World Series winners had in the five years before its title finished in the top 5 of Baseball America’s system rankings at least twice.

Not only did Manny Machado mention the promise of the farm system as one of the reasons he chose to sign with the Padres, there is no way the team commits $300 million to one player if it weren’t able to surround him with a bunch of good, inexpensive players.

“The biggest thing is probably getting to ’19, ’20,” Preller said in the summer of 2016. “That’s when you want to have the large majority of your club that is going to be young, fun, exciting, cheap, which will be important because then we’ll have the financial flexibility to go out and spend money on a guy or two to get us where we want to be.”


Now, Preller says, the challenge is this:

“That I don’t mess this thing up.”

Get ‘em ready

Padres coaches are in awe. They noticed it last year with the likes of Luis Urias, Fernando Tatis Jr., Joey Lucchesi and Eric Lauer.

This year, as even more of the organization’s top prospects are in major league camp, it has been even more impressive.


“Let me tell you what,” said Darren Balsley, entering his 16th season as Padres pitching coach. “Our development people have done a fantastic job. These kids wants to compete. From what I have seen – and we’ve had tons of good staffs here – these kids are more mentally prepared than any I’ve ever seen. … I don’t have to do a lot of mental work with them. They’re prepared.”

Despite the fact the Padres are advancing more younger players quicker than ever, they come with maturity and competitiveness and focus. They have workout regimens and warm-up routines.

They have all had certain tenets emphasized at every level, because that was part of the plan Preller instituted.

The Padres have spent about $390 million on major league salaries over the past four seasons. That they have almost equaled that in “other baseball expenditures,” according to numbers seen by the Union-Tribune, is not merely because the organization has scrimped on the big club’s payroll. Some of that “other baseball” money went to the record international class of 2016. But also, a significant amount was sunk into player development.


The Padres have over the past few years added at least one coach at each minor league affiliate, more roving instructors and mental coaches and life skills coaches both domestically and at their facility in the Dominican Republic.

Most of their minor league coaches have stayed in the system, some becoming managers or otherwise advancing. Players have been taught the same things, often by the same people.

“There are definitely a lot of things we preach that we try to be very intentional about – that we start preaching as soon as they walk in the door until the time they’re in the big leagues,” said Assistant General Manager Josh Stein. “That’s a big part of what we’re trying to build – what A.J. is all about – trying to build that continuity. Hire the right people and keep and maintain that stability across baseball operations. When you have that stability, that’s when you get the same message year after year after year.”

Elite, or nothing

Opinions vary on what comprises a top farm system. Therein lies one of the factors that make it so subjective.


But those within the organization who have helped stock the Padres system and others around baseball list a few imperatives inherent to a minor league system that will churn potential into a major league playoff payoff.

There must be layers. Or in Padres parlance, waves of talent that continually lap on the major league shore.

This will be the third year in a row that the Padres low-A affiliate in Fort Wayne, Ind., is loaded. It’s where No.1 prospect Fernando Tatis Jr., ranked by everyone who ranks as one of the top three prospects in the game, was along with several others in 2017. Last year, seven of the Padres’ top-30 prospects spent the majority of their season in Fort Wayne.

Seven more spent the majority of ’19 at Single-A Lake Elsinore, eight at Double-A San Antonio and three at Triple-A El Paso. Four spent the majority of their ‘19 season in rookie ball. (Anderson Espinoza, ranked 12th by Baseball America, was recovering from Tommy John surgery.)


The system must have players who advance quickly.

At the start of 2017, Joey Lucchesi and Eric Lauer were pitching for Single-A Lake Elsinore. A year later, they were starting for the Padres. Chris Paddack, 23 and having lost a season to Tommy John, began last year in Single-A. Logan Allen, 21, spent most of last year in Double-A. They will be in the Padres’ rotation this season, perhaps at the start.

Tatis turned 20 in January and will be in the majors by summer. Luis Urias, 21, will keep his spot at shortstop warm before moving to second base.

All 11 of the Padres prospects listed among baseball’s top 100 by either Baseball America or MLB.com are projected to be in the majors by 2021. None will be older than 25, and all but three will be 23 or younger.


Some will beat those expected arrival dates. Some will come later than hoped. Some will be better than the Padres and others anticipate. Some won’t be impact players, and some won’t make it at all.

Those are givens. The industry standard suggests four out of even the top 10 prospects becoming significant contributors is good. If two of those are All-Stars and challenging for MVP or Cy Young awards, that is excellent.

That is why the volume of the Padres’ system is meant to withstand disappointment.

But it is also why Padres scouts have it continually impressed on them that when assessing amateur players, Tatis is the aim. No longer should anyone here be excited about Khalil Greene, who was the Padres’ shortstop of the future and the 67th-ranked prospect in baseball in 2003.


“You can have a lot of players and have a good farm system,” said Logan White, the Padres Director of Player Personnel. “But if you don’t have guys that come out of that farm system that are challenging for the big awards, you don’t really have a good system. We have players that should come up here and at some point are challenging for the elite awards. … If in San Diego we put a whole team of guys who are OK guys, not great players, we’re still losing. We have to get some guys who become the guys. When we have multiple of those, then we can space in around them. That’s when we have a chance to be special and win.”