2015 Baseball America top 100 prospects list has Francisco Lindor in top ten

Baseball America released its top 100 prospects list for 2015 earlier this week. At the top of the list is Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant, who has been atop a couple of the other big lists this offseason. Francisco Lindor, who's been the Cleveland Indians' premier prospect for what feels like forever now, comes in at #9, up a few spots from his #13 placement a year ago. There's a brief video clip of Lindor up at BA, if you're interested.

Baseball Prospectus has Lindor at #4, Keith Law has him at #6, FanGraphs has him at #14, so BA's ranking for him fits right in around the average of the other major lists. He's one of the top prospects in all of baseball, just as he was a year ago. He seems pretty MLB ready to me, but he'll have to wait at least two or three weeks into the season before having any chance of getting called up, and if Jose Ramirez starts the season well for the Indians, Lindor could remain in Columbus for most of 2015.

The rest of the Baseball America list doesn't include any other Indians prospects. Clint Frazier, the consensus #2 prospect in the Tribe system, was on both the BP and Law lists. BA had him at #48 last year, so his absence represents a substantial drop. BP also included Francisco Mejia on their list.

The farm system has improved quite a bit in the last couple years, especially in terms of position players, but it's still no better than an average system overall. Frazier and Mejia are both very young, as are a couple of the organization's other top prospects, and so there's reason to think the overall ranking will continue to rise, but even if that happens, it's going to be a while before much help arrives.

The good news is, the present 25-man talent is strong enough to contend for the AL Central crown this year, and the significant pieces are all under team control for at least another three years, which could buy the farm system the time it needs.