In the updated 2026 Top 100 Prospects from Fangraphs’ The Board, the Dodgers had 6 players on the list. The Astros had one: Kevin Alvarez. That’s not unusual. Over the last 10 years, the Dodgers have had more Fangraphs Top 100 prospects than the Astros every year but one.
Well, why shouldn’t they? Everyone knows the Dodgers’ farm system is consistently better than the Astros’, right? But then why does it seem like the Astros still crank out quality major leaguers from their farm system at a rate comparable to the Dodgers?
To investigate, I did a dive into the Top 100 prospect lists from 2017 through 2026 using Fangraphs’ The Board, comparing the vaunted Los Angeles Dodgers system with the Houston Astros’. The Board only shows 2017-2026, with two lists per year: an initial one prior to the season and an updated one later on in the year. In 2017, there was only one list, making 19 lists total from 2017 to 2026.
| LAD | HOU | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of players counted as Top 100 Prospects | 34 | 17 |
| Number of times appearing in the 19 total lists | 87 | 31 |
| Total WAR production | 131.4 | 97.5 |
| WAR per season | 13.14 | 9.75 |
| WAR per player | 3.86 | 5.74 |
Over the 10 years, that seems like a very small difference. Here’s the kicker: when you look at the prospect lists, there are almost no clear misses among Dodgers prospects who did not make the Top 100. Any Dodger prospect who went on to have a successful MLB career made the Top 100 at some point. Very few Dodger prospects that never made the Top 100 have gone on to successful careers. Perhaps Justin Wrobleski will continue on this path, but outside of that? Not much. Prospect rankers simply do not overlook Dodgers prospects.
On Houston’s side, Framber Valdez never came close to the Fangraphs Top 100. His 19.5 career WAR would rank him 3rd highest on the Dodgers list for total production. Bryan Abreu aldo didn’t come close to a Top 100 ranking. Neither did Cristian Javier. Both of those guys each have 7.7 WAR for their careers. That figure would rank them 3rd among all Dodgers pitchers during this period. By the end of this season, they’ll likely move up to second.
Just those 3 guys, who have spent all but one season with Houston combined among them, entirely close the gap in WAR production between players who were Astros and Dodgers prospects.
That does NOT include other players who accumulated 5 or more WAR in their careers, such as Ramon Laureano (17.4), Wilyer Abreu (11.6), Myles Straw (10 WAR), Chas McCormick (5.8 WAR), or Ronel Blanco (5 WAR), none of whom were ever included on Fangraph’s Top 100 lists. Why do I use 5 WAR as a significance level? Of the 41 total players who made the Top 100, only 14 of them have gone on to have a career WAR of 5.0 or higher in their major league careers. I don’t believe there is anyone from the Dodgers system who was not included on a Top 100 list that comes close to Myles Straw’s career production, which would be 5th among all Dodgers Top 100 players as of today, much less Valdez, Laureano, or Wilye Abreu. In fact, I don’t think any of them are even at McCormick’s level in terms of WAR.
Guys like Ryan Pepiot, Connor Wong, and Zach McKinstry were useful players, but they are 5-WAR-level guys.
This simply adds fuel to the fire of my contention that there is a load of industry groupthink and a bit of bias toward the Dodgers system. I don’t think it is some conspiracy or anything. I think it’s largely laziness or an unwillingness to go against the norm. The lists are largely uniform, rarely deviating greatly, and so they routinely miss out on players who go on to have fantastic careers.
They are, at their core, nothing more than entertaining items of discussion for fans of the game, and they are best understood as such.
Feature photo from Astros X.
Good article! Two reflections come to my mind. The ranking has consequence when trading prospects. I can’t help myself….the Dodgers are lobbying Fangraphs and MLB to rank their prospects higher.
Me bad.
There’s definitely a snowball effect involved in these public rankings that has given orgs like the Dodgers too much credit for too little, and ignored the success of some other teams.
The advantage they have when trading with other teams is pretty marginal, since teams have their own rankings systems and the public ones are not somehow objective. But it certainly creates a degree of unearned media/PR fluffing that becomes self-perpetuating.
The Skubal trade seems to have been the rare case when an FO was the victim of this fluffing.
Personally, I don’t care about rankings, aside from the broadest overviews or at the very top, where it’s nice to see some of your prospects on the top 100.
I am sure the rankings get in the trade conversation.
Interesting enough, the Astros farm system is bad according to Fangraphs and MLB, and they will never change their mind.