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Last year’s leaders in overall WAR (wins above replacement) for pitchers and hitters were Detroit right-hander Justin Verlander and Los Angeles outfielder Mike Trout, respectively.

Both were first-rounders.

Last year’s batting champion was San Francisco’s Buster Posey. His division rival, Clayton Kershaw, led all of baseball with a 2.53 ERA.

Both were first-rounders.

In fact, the major league league leaders in hits (Derek Jeter), doubles (Alex Gordon), runs (Trout), stolen bases (Trout…again), wins (Gio Gonzalez), strikeouts per nine innings (Max Scherzer), innings (Verlander), strikeouts (Verlander…again) and games started (Zack Greinke) were all former first-round selections.

The point?

These days, projecting success for a first-round selection is easier than ever.

Rare are the Kyle Lohses (29th round, led MLB in win-loss percentage) of the world. So rare, in fact, that it’s hard to find another pitcher or hitter who led the league in any statistical category that wasn’t picked in either the first or second round.

As such, when projecting future stars of the 2013 class, it really only makes sense to stick to the prospects we know—the Mark Appels and Clint Fraziers of the world. These are the guys who will develop into the strikeout champions, the home run king and the Gold Glovers.

So, without further ado, let’s see if we can project which players have those kinds of superlatives in their future.

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Signing an oft-injured pitcher to a slightly over-priced, incentive-laden deal?

The Orioles have made it a side-business over the past few years, inking such pitchers as Justin Duchscherer, Dana Eveland, Randy Wolf, Josh Rupe and Jeremy Accardo.

Some of the deals have worked in the Orioles favor, such as the veteran Wolf, who tossed some valuable innings down the stretch of last year’s wild card run. Most, however, are like Duchscherer, who never even made it to the mound in a regular season game.

So, why is there excitement (albeit tempered) among O’s fans tonight as the team dives in with yet another wounded Bird, this time in the form of Jair Jurrjens?

Well, for starters, Jurrjens offers something none of those other names above did.

Youth.

At 26, it’s reasonable to think that Jurrjens‘ best years are still ahead of him, and let’s be honest, he’s already had some pretty darn good ones. Fourteen wins, a 2.60 ERA and more than 200 innings in 2009. Thirteen victories and a 2.96 ERA in just 23 starts in 2011.

No current O’s starter can lay claim to a season as impressive as either of those campaigns.

Still, there has to be a reason the O’s were able to get the right-hander for so cheap, right? One and a half million for one year’s work, with the potential for $4 million with incentives. That’s a contract in line with a talented reliever, not a potential ace.

So, what to make of the Jurrjens‘ signing?

Let’s take a look at what the best and worst case scenarios could be for both the O’s and Jurrjens, as a member of a Baltimore franchise looking to make back-to-back trips to the playoffs for the first time in nearly two decades.

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The 2012 rookie class has plenty of talent.

Yu Darvish, Julio Teheran, Trevor Bauer, Devin Mesoraco, Matt Moore and Jacob Turner are just a few of the names that will likely be called upon to play major roles for their respective teams during the 2012 season. More than a few of them will have a solid chance to make their league’s All-Star roster. One or two might even accomplish the feat.

Without a doubt, the majority of the top prospects in baseball will make at least one All-Star game, what with a record 84 players being named to the two teams last year. Some teams and some prospects, however, will not be so lucky.

Some players are just two young, while some are just products of systems that have little to offer the big-leagues.

Either way, here’s a rough estimate on when each team’s top prospect will make their first All-Star game.

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The Mariners farm system got a huge boost early this morning when the Yankees and M’s reached an agreement that sends top prospect Jesus Montero to Seattle in exchange for flame-throwing right-hander Michael Pineda.

Montero has been one of the hottest names on the market for a few years now and was almost included in several deals, including one that would have brought him to Seattle in exchange for Cliff Lee back in 2010.

Montero is just one of several big-name prospects that has been moved this offseason, and he’s surely not going to be the last as several teams are still looking to acquire the pieces that will allow them to compete in 2012.

Let’s take a quick look at the top 10 guys who have been dealt so far.

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The Yankees and Mariners have agreed to a trade that will send top prospect Jesus Montero and right-hander Hector Noesi to Seattle. New York will receive flame-throwing right-hander Michael Pineda, who finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting in the American League last year.

All of this is according to ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because the two teams discussed a trade that involved Montero back in 2010, when the Yankees were trying to acquire lefty Cliff Lee. At one point it appeared that the two squads had agreed on a deal, but the Mariners reneged and sent Lee to Texas in exchange for a package of prospects anchored by first baseman Justin Smoak.

By dealing Pineda, the Mariners have now opened up a rotation spot for top prospect and 2011 first-rounder Danny Hultzen, who has already been guaranteed an invite to spring training. That assumes, of course, that Noesi, who has gone 25-15 with a 3.17 ERA in six minor league seasons, doesn’t lock down the spot instead.

In acquiring Pineda, the Yankees brought some much-needed youth to a rotation that includes 31-year-old C.C. Sabathia, 35-year-olds A.J. Burnett and Freddy Garcia, and the newly acquired Hiroki Kuroda, who is 36.

Pineda, 22, burst onto the scene in 2011, winning six of his first nine starts. He finished the season as the rookie leader in strikeouts (173).

More importantly, however, he helped provide a brief sliver of hope to Seattle fans who had grown tired of having only one All-Star-caliber pitcher (Felix Hernandez), not to mention watching talent leave town (Doug Fister to Detroit).

While Montero doesn’t necessarily solve the Mariners’ catching woes, he does provide the M’s with a potent bat, one the team has been lacking for quite some time. His combination of power and average made him one of the top hitting prospects in baseball the past three seasons, and it appears that he’ll finally get the opportunity to play every day in the Majors.

Something that hadn’t been afforded him in New York.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Now that the calendar has finally turned to January, Major League Baseball’s draft season is just getting fired up. The college season will be starting soon, with the high school campaign set to follow shortly thereafter.

The 2012 draft crop has nowhere near the elite talent of the 2010 crop (Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Jameson Taillon), and nowhere near the depth of the 2011 class, but that’s not to say that there isn’t any future MVP or Cy Young talent to be found.

On the contrary. The 2012 class is big on ceiling, with many of its top names (Mark Appel, Byron Buxton, David Dahl, Chris Beck, etc.) still yet to have a truly dominating season. The hope with these players is that the best is still yet to come.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to set the final draft order until the beginning of the 2012 big league season, seeing as how several big-name free agents have yet to sign, and therefore compensation for their losses has yet to be handed out.

Still, there’s a good chance that with the exception of an awarded compensation pick for Milwaukee for eventually losing Prince Fielder, the first round will look a lot like it does right now.

So, without further ado, let’s delve into the first full first-round mock draft of 2012, complete with video accompaniment, when available.

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Honestly, nobody outside of the state of Arizona expected the Diamondbacks to win more games than they lost in 2011, much less compete for a division title.

In the end, however, they wound up with 94 victories, a spot in the playoffs and most importantly, renewed confidence that they can compete on an annual basis for the foreseeable future.

With Trevor Cahill, whose addition is more ironic than you’d think, joining the starting five, the D-Backs now have one of the top rotations not only in the National League West, but in all of baseball.

Don’t forget, too, just how young this unit is. Cahill will turn 24 on March 1, while Ian Kennedy (21-4, 2.88 ERA), Dan Hudson (16-12, 3.49) and Josh Collmenter (10-10, 3.38), the crux of the 2011 staff, are all 27 years old or younger.

Think of the Diamondbacks pitching staff as a slightly older, much more seasoned version of the rotation being assembled across the nation in Tampa Bay.

Cahill is the perfect addition for Arizona. In Oakland he was often forced, due to the poor health of Brett Anderson (who coincidentally was drafted the same year as Cahill, but by Arizona) into the role of staff ace, and while he may yet have that potential, for the time being, he seems to pitch much better in a less pressure-packed role. Having three experienced starters ahead of him in Arizona should allow him to blossom and maybe even to ascend to No. 1 status.

Getting a pitcher of Cahill’s stature isn’t the only sensational thing the Diamondbacks did here, though. They also expertly played the prospect game.

Once upon a time, right-hander Jarrod Parker was the darling of a thin Arizona farm system. He was essentially the whole enchilada when it came to front-line starting pitching.

In the four years since they made him their first-round selection, however, they’ve added a handful or high-upside starting pitchers, including: Trevor Bauer (20), Archie Bradley (19), Pat Corbin (21), David Holmberg (20), Anthony Meo (21) and Tyler Skaggs (20).

Three of those pitchers (Bauer, Bradley and Skaggs) have top-of-the-rotation stuff. Two of them, Bauer and Skaggs, are nearly big-league ready.

Combine those additions with a serious injury to Parker’s throwing arm, one that caused him to miss the entire 2010 season, and a pitcher who once ranked as the 29th best prospect in all of baseball now seems expendable.

Parker showed some promise in 2011, his first full season back from Tommy John surgery, posting a 3.79 ERA while gutting out a career-high 130.2 innings, but he also showed some rust. The 55 walks he issued, and the 11 batters he plunked were also career highs.

Don’t get me wrong, Parker still has immense potential. When he was healthy back in 2008 and 2009, he looked as good as any pitching prospect in the game. 

His control and his stuff were excellent and he had the poise of a 10-year veteran on the mound, despite being plucked straight from high school. No doubt, the A’s also won in this deal, assuming he can return to his pre-Tommy John form.

For the Diamondbacks as an organization, though, they have improved their depth to the point where they didn’t need Parker to pan out for them as they once did. They have plenty of talented arms and they’re bound to hit with one or more of them.

Back to the point. The D-Backs should get high marks for the deal because they used Parker the way a team with loaded pitching depth should.

They made what will likely come out to be an even swap, dealing a top prospect who’s not yet ready for a seasoned, albeit still young, pitcher who can help their team now.

Come next September, assuming a good chunk of their starting five makes it through the season healthy, the D-Backs could be thinking much higher than just a division crown. With Cahill leading the charge, they could be a legitimate contender for the National League pennant.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Coming into the season, the Orioles had one of the worst farm systems in baseball, according to Baseball America.

About a third of the way into the season, they’re starting to work their way up the rankings, thanks to the stellar play of Manny Machado, Jon Schoop and Tyler Townsend. Not to mention the usual consistency from Josh Bell, Matt Angle and a cadre of young pitchers.

The O’s improved the system even more this past week with the First-Year Player Draft.

Not only did they select arguably the top high-school pitcher of the past decade in Dylan Bundy, but they also filled their farm system with some polished college pitching that should help out greatly.

It was a very good couple of weeks for some of the O’s top players. Schoop was amazing…again, while Dylan’s older brother Bobby continued his prospect ascension.

Let’s check out who the top and not-so-top prospects were for the Orioles over the past week and a half.

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The draft is a little less than two full days away, and everybody is on their toes to see who goes number one overall, whether or not Kansas City pops local product Bubba Starling, and whether or not Josh Bell will be drafted in the first-round…or at all, after issuing a statement asking teams not to draft him.

We appear to have gotten a little clarification in the past few hours, with the report from CBS Sports that the Pirates appear to have settled on Gerrit Cole as their selection. That very well may be the case, and will now allow the Mariners to start talks with Anthony Rendon, but we’ve all see this type of thing before, including last year when the Royals supposedly had a pre-draft deal in place with Yasmani Grandal. They ended up taking Christian Colon instead.

So here’s the latest scoop from around the web, including some recent mock draft news from both Baseball America and MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo.

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The Major League Baseball draft is unique.

And while hockey is the only other sport that has a similar style draft, in which players who are drafted aren’t immediately a member of the league that hosts the event, only baseball offers six and sometimes seven different levels of “minor leagues.”

The baseball draft is unique in yet another way. When targeting a draft selection, need is often the furthest thing from a scouting director’s mind. Drafting for need as a scouting director or GM can get you fired real quick.

This is a sharp contrast from football, where the worst teams in the NFL often look to a quarterback or defensive player who can step in immediately and make a difference.

In baseball, a team can draft a player and have him up to the majors in one to two years at the quickest in most cases. Other players, high-schoolers specifically, need anywhere from two to five years of seasoning.

Still, whereas drafting for need is most of the time the worst possible thing a team could do in baseball, it has served some teams well in the past few years (think the Nationals with Stephen Strasburg and the Orioles with Matt Wieters) and is starting to become something that is less and less silly thanks to the polished players that are being drafted out of the college ranks these days.

Taking that into account, let’s examine closely which teams could fill a great need in their farm system by taking a player in the first round. 

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