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With a month of the season in the books, rookies are making impacts on their teams across the majors. For some, their arrivals and performances were expected; others have been pleasant surprises.

I’ll be keeping track of this season’s rookie class in this regular rookie report, monitoring their performances and possible trade stock for when the July 31 trade deadline approaches. So here are the top 15 rookies in the major leagues right now based on how they are performing this year, as well as the next 15 ranked in chart form below.

For the first installment of the rookie report, click here.

1. Shelby Miller | RHP | Stock: Up
Miller is pitching up to the expectations of a first-round pick (picked 19th in 2009). After earning a spot in the rotation out of spring training, he has posted a 3-1 record with an ERA of 1.44 and a WHIP of 0.84. Miller is a strikeout/ground ball machine. He pounds the strike zone with a 91-95 mph fastball with nasty sink and provides plenty of ground ball outs. He consistently gets ahead of batters, which sets up a devastating 12-6 curveball. He’s the early front-runner for NL Rookie of the Year.

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Among this year’s crop of top prospects, some of the bigger, more well-known names are starting the season in the minor leagues. By now Oscar Taveras, Wil Myers and Jurickson Profar are no longer anonymous farmhands but familiar names. Reasons why they didn’t break camp with their big league clubs vary and include economics, being blocked by All-Star talent and overall readiness. But eventually this trio of prospects will get the call this season and could factor into the Rookie of the Year races.

However, what about the prospects who did make their big league clubs? Here is my Top 10 list for the class of rookies currently in the big leagues, based on how I think they will fare this year.

1. Jedd Gyorko | 2B/3B | San Diego Padres

Gyorko can flat-out rake. He has a short stroke with a direct path to the ball. He has above-average power with consistent sweet-spot contact and tremendous plate coverage. He’s playing both second and third right now but will be the Padres’ full-time second baseman when Chase Headley returns from injury. If Headley is moved at the trade deadline, Gyorko will become the Padres’ long-term solution at third. His defense is average at second, but his bat plays and he’s my choice for NL Rookie of the Year.

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Potential and upside, even track record, can carry a career only so far. At some point, a player has to put up or shut up. Baseball is a results-oriented industry and if the production isn't there, neither are you.

With it being Opening Day in many ballparks around the major leagues, the following are 10 guys for whom it's now or never. The 2013 season must amount to some form of success and some relative progress after two or three seasons of failure and disappointment.

Tim Lincecum | RHP | San Francisco Giants
By now the narrative on Lincecum is well-documented: the Giants’ first-round selection and 10th overall pick in the 2006 draft burst on the major league scene in 2008 and achieved rock star status in San Francisco, when he went 18-5 with a 2.62 ERA, led the league with 265 strikeouts and won the first of his two Cy Young awards. That began a run of four consecutive All-Star appearances and culminated in a World Series championship in 2010.

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With Friday’s news of right-hander Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers agreeing to a record-setting contract, the drama of whether baseball’s best pitcher would see free agency in two years came to an end.

Some could say it was predictable in a sense. After all, the Tigers would look extremely foolhardy to allow Verlander to walk via free agency after his current contract expires after 2014. Saying Verlander was going to sign an extension at some point isn’t going out very far on that proverbial limb. It’s just not a bold prediction.

So, what craziness could happen in 2013? With Opening Day just around the corner, here are my 10 bold predictions for the 2013 baseball season:

1. New York Yankees finish last in AL East.

It hasn’t happened in 22 years, since the Yankees finished 67-95 and seven games in back of the Milwaukee Brewers, but the Yankees could very easily go from first in 2012 to worst in 2013. And, with the American League’s largest payroll, there is additional pressure to win in addition to their own high standards of success.

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Spring training performances and statistics can be very misleading. Often major league hitters are facing minor league pitchers, or sometimes major league pitchers are simply working on refining a certain pitch and get hammered. When scouting hitters in person it’s almost more important to pay attention to the pitcher the hitters are facing and where the pitches are in the zone. Honestly, no one cares if a guy hits a home run off an 88 mph fastball down the middle of the plate. However, if that same guy goes yard on an inside fastball off of Justin Verlander or a nasty slider down and away off of David Price, it matters.

This was the first time I spent spring training watching entirely the Cactus League in Arizona. While young players such as Aaron Hicks, Julio Teheran and Jackie Bradley Jr. impressed scouts across the country in the Grapefruit League, six particular players in Arizona impressed me. They performed far beyond what I was expecting, and I’m intrigued to see if they can maintain the brilliance they displayed this spring.

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The good news for the Los Angeles Dodgers is that Zack Greinke’s elbow ligaments and tendons are fine. The bad news is Greinke himself doesn’t know when he’ll be able to pitch again.

The right-hander has been dealing with inflammation in his pitching elbow and was given an injection of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) to settle down the elbow. In my experience, inflammation is a telltale sign of loose bodies -- perhaps a bone spur or something similar. But when I pressed Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti, he told me there were no loose bodies or a bone spur in the back of Greinke’s elbow.

The Dodgers are hoping the PRP injection helps Greinke as it did his teammate Chad Billingsley, who is pain-free and throwing great. Greinke didn’t want to talk about the elbow, only saying that he was going to follow the direction of the training staff. To him, the best-case scenario might be pitching the second game of the season, but he definitely won't be able to throw 120 pitches by then even if all goes well.

Greinke is emblematic of the Dodgers right now: lots of star power with lots of questions. The star power sends expectations through the roof -- expectations that don’t match the team’s actual ability level and health. A good season has the Dodgers winning 90 games and a playoff berth, but the fact is they simply aren’t better than clubs such as the Giants, Nationals, Reds and Tigers.

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In the combined 15 years I served as general manager of both the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals, I was always a huge proponent of the World Baseball Classic. Baseball is an international sport, and perhaps someday the World Series will include teams from around the world rather than just clubs from the United States and Canada.

Until then, the WBC is a welcome alternative. It’s been a relative success internationally, underscored in 2009, when each game averaged 2 million viewers. Japan won both the 2006 and 2009 tournaments, while the United States, which has arguably the best collection of players in the world, has not fared well in the WBC mainly because so many players decline invitations to participate.

Their reasons for not playing are varied and justified to a certain degree. Money plays a part; Justin Verlander isn’t participating for fear of injury during contract negotiations; Jurickson Profar is focused on making the Texas Rangers. If Profar plays in the WBC, it could mean the difference between making the team or not and receiving a big league paycheck or not. Mike Trout simply thought he needed a full spring training to be prepared for the regular season.

On the other hand, Russell Martin’s cavalier withdrawal from Team Canada because they wouldn't let him play shortstop illustrates the somewhat lax attitude many MLB players have toward the tournament. Martin’s actions essentially mock the WBC. Team USA has been guilty of this; they simply do not take the same amount of pride in the tournament as other countries such as Japan, Cuba, South Korea, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. Sure, it's not the Olympics, but those countries seem to better understand the honor and privilege of representing one’s country.

However, if the World Baseball Classic is to reach its potential and help the sport open doors to new revenues and audiences, we need to change the culture and attitude regarding major league players’ participation. For this to happen, baseball must make participation mandatory by all healthy players, just as it does for the All-Star Game. It should become part of the player uniform contract as well as the collective bargaining agreement.

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Baseball is a results-oriented business. Players who do not produce do not last long. Some young players, however, are afforded more time and multiple chances to establish themselves because of the potential they’ve shown or their formidable physical skills. Others are veterans clinging to roster spots -- trying to prove they’re not washed up -- or injured players trying to re-establish themselves as starters.

For the following 10 players, spring is the start of a make-or-break season. If they succeed, they stave off critics and age for another season. If they don’t, this could be their last in the major leagues.

1. Michael Young | 3B | Veteran trying to prove he’s not in decline

At 36, Young is coming off his worst offensive year in more than a decade, hitting just .277/.312/.370 with 27 doubles and eight home runs. The Rangers couldn’t promise him a full-time role in 2013, so Young waived his trade veto rights to become Philadelphia’s everyday third baseman. Young served primarily as the Rangers’ DH and super-utility player, but his range has diminished, and some scouts question if he still has the first-step quickness needed to be adequate at third base. Young is still a clubhouse leader and is just one year removed from leading the AL with 213 hits. To many baseball evaluators' eyes, it looked as if his bat was slowing down. The Phillies are hoping that’s not the case.

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During spring training, players aren’t the only ones trying to fine-tune things. General managers must use the time to evaluate not only their players but their field staff, too. It’s the time to get things done, especially things such as contract negotiations, which neither player nor management wants to do into the regular season. After nearly three decades in the industry, I’ve seen and experienced what happens when certain things don’t get done before the regular season commences.

Thus, I predict the following five moves will get done during spring training:

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It was an active offseason that witnessed the trade of a Cy Young Award winner, several large, multiteam trades and an inflated free-agent market. So to evaluate and rank the offseason of all 30 teams, I took into account the following factors:

• How it improved the team for 2013, as well as the next five years.
• How it affected payroll and budgets -- both short and long term.
• How it affected team chemistry and clubhouse culture.
• How effectively needs were filled -- through free agency, trade or farm system.
• The amount of money committed compared with the value received.
• Aggressiveness.

With spring camp upon us, we'll see whose offseason produces the best results. Here are the rankings of all 30 teams’ offseason campaigns.

1. Toronto Blue Jays | GM: Alex Anthopoulos
Acquired: RHPs R.A. Dickey, Josh Johnson, LHPs Mark Buehrle, Darren Oliver, SS Jose Reyes, C's Josh Thole and Mike Nickeas, IFs Emilio Bonifacio, Maicer Izturis, OF Melky Cabrera
Analysis: Anthopoulos had a tremendous offseason, making two of the biggest offseason trades in baseball history. It cost him some prospects, and when the dust settled the Blue Jays added three top-of-the-rotation starters to complement Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow to give the Jays the best five-man rotation in the division -- on paper. They now have the veteran leadership, speed, energy and enthusiasm to be a legitimate World Series contender.

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There’s an old scouting adage: “He’ll tell us when he’s ready.”

While that mainly pertains to gauging minor league players and their major league readiness, it also applies to young major leaguers trying to live up to their potential and looking for that “breakout” season.

It’s that season when all the tools, talent and abilities come together to fulfill the many high expectations on all the scouting reports. It offers the talent evaluators confirmation that they got it right while proving the critics wrong.

Take a look at the breakout seasons Matt Kemp, Andrew McCutchen and Carlos Gonzalez enjoyed over the past several years. Long regarded as five-tool players with elite physical talent, their teams and fans waited and waited for the corresponding elite production to come. It happened for a 24-year-old Kemp in 2009, when he hit 26 homers with 101 RBIs and won his first Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards after slowly increasing his production since his major league debut in 2006. Likewise, the same explosion happened for Gonzalez in 2010 at age 24, and then for McCutchen in 2012 at age 25.

The 2013 season should be no different. Here are seven individuals, all just about the same age as our aforementioned trio, who have barely scratched the surface of their massive potential and are primed to be among baseball’s breakout players in 2013.

1. Justin Upton | OF | Age: 25

With six years of experience, Upton is primed to finally reach his potential. He’s different than Kemp, McCutchen and Gonzalez because he’s already had a successful start to his career that includes two All-Star appearances, a Silver Slugger Award and a top-five showing in 2011 NL MVP voting. He has the potential to produce 35 homers and 100 RBIs annually, but he has yet to put together a consistent year from start to finish that would really signify his arrival. Being traded to the Atlanta Braves might just be the trigger. Playing beside his brother B.J. and surrounded in the lineup with other elite young players such as Jason Heyward and Freddie Freeman could spur him to bring his game to another level. The Diamondbacks didn’t believe in him and he will be motivated to show them that they were wrong to trade him.

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We haven’t even gotten to spring training and there are already players whose jobs are in jeopardy either because of their team's trades, free-agent signings or young prospects who are getting ready to burst on to the scene. Here are six players who could lose their jobs between now and Opening Day.


Michael Morse, 1B/LF | Washington Nationals

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An emotional reaction was not a surprise and probably warranted. Shortly after the Miami Marlins' blockbuster trade of Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson to the Toronto Blue Jays in November, Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton sent out the following tweet:

@Giancarlo818: "Alright, I'm pissed off!!! Plain & Simple”

He watched as his team’s management decimated the roster for a package of prospects. Now Stanton sits in the wreckage of what used to be a team most thought would contend for the National League East Division title. Now they’ll be lucky not to lose 100 games.

Stanton has been very open about his desire to be traded, but the Marlins have control of his contract through 2016. The question now will be whether he gets his wish. If you believe the Marlins’ front office, it’s not happening.

When great players are stuck in bad situations, they must possess and display great character and intensity to perform at the same level as if they were on a contending team. Here are five examples of great players who will have to perform in bad situations in 2013, as well as a look at how these players might be able to get out of their current mess:

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It’s not very often we have an offseason in which so many of the game’s top prospects are traded, but that’s exactly what's happened this winter with the Kansas City Royals dealing Wil Myers to the Tampa Bay Rays as part of the package for starter James Shields, as well as the Toronto Blue Jays trading catcher Travis d'Arnaud to the New York Mets in a blockbuster deal for NL Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey.

So naturally all of this movement raises the question: Who will be the next highly-touted prospect to be traded?

I don’t think it will be Texas Rangers rookie Jurickson Profar, largely because the Rangers already have turned down opportunities to trade him for Shields, Dickey and Justin Upton. Nor do I think any of the following prospects will be traded: Taijuan Walker (Seattle Mariners), Gerrit Cole (Pittsburgh Pirates), Francisco Lindor (Cleveland Indians), Dylan Bundy (Baltimore Orioles).

However, we are seeing teams show a willingness to trade elite young talent, and here are seven top prospects who could be dealt in 2013 for the right starting pitcher or middle-of-the-order impact bat:

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