At the major league level, the Toronto Blue Jays will hit Monday's off day at 61-65 and in last place in the American League East.

But despite the unsightly position in the standings, the Jays are just one game back in the battle for the third and final wild card spot. They are 7-3 in their last 10 games, and with a favorable schedule on deck, there are reasons for optimism over the final six weeks of the regular season. 

But that optimism doesn't really expand to the minor leagues, where the Jays were ranked as having the No. 22 farm system in the sport by MLB Pipeline in its most recent reveal.

The Blue Jays were ranked as the No. 15 farm system in the preseason and were No. 20 at the 2025 midseason, so they continue to fluctuate.

Let's examine what's going on.

The Jays do have two Top 100 prospects in their system in shortstop JoJo Parker (No. 26) and right-handed pitcher Nolan Perry (No. 96), but they lack the kind of elite talent depth that the upper-echelon teams have. For instance, the Dodgers have six Top 100 prospects and the Milwaukee Brewers have five.

Parker is still years away from the big leagues, and while Perry could be there in 2027, there isn't a lot of impact help on the immediate horizon.

Trey Yesavage was listed as a Top 100 prospect before the season, but he fell off the list, which certainly doesn't help things. Furthermore, Arjun Nimmala, a Top 100 prospect, was traded at the deadline for Jose Soriano, which also drops the farm system rankings as a whole.

So some of the drops are understandable in that regard, but trades of Kevin Gausman (Cubs), Daulton Varsho (Astros) and Jeff Hoffman (Twins) at the trade deadline reportedly didn't move the needle in terms of the prospects acquired.

As noted by MLB Pipeline, pitchers Ricky Tiedemann and Jake Bloss have both battled injuries, which hurts their overall stature in the system. Bloss has only recently returned from Tommy John surgery and the 23-year-old Tiedemann just made his major league debut after injury issues that have persisted since 2023. We will see if he can live up to his former top prospect status.

The Blue Jays have a lot of money as an organization, and they've used it on guys like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Dylan Cease, Cody Ponce, Tyler Rogers, Anthony Santander and Kazuma Okamoto. They have the money to "spend" their way out of team problems, but teams would always prefer to have internal answers to questions. 

The farm system is where you get those answers. They are cheaper, younger, and still come with real upside. The less of them you have, the more you are forced to go out and spend.

And while spending is nice and shows that the organization is committed, as we've seen in the case of Santander, it doesn't always work.