Now that we have entered the month of May, you are going to start hearing a lot of chatter about prospects who will be getting the call to the big leagues. 

Major league clubs won't come out and admit it, but they want to keep their top players in the minors to delay their arbitration clocks and gain another year of control. It is a smart financial strategy, though it can hurt your playoff chances come October. 

For instance, last year, the Los Angeles Angels kept the corpse of Vernon Wells in left field and sent Mike Trout back to Triple-A to start the year. Wells was awful, as expected, for a month, leading to Trout being called up and having the season he had. 

But because the Angels started out the year so slowly, they missed the playoffs by four games. The odds of Trout alone being worth four wins in one month are zero, but having that presence at the top of the lineup might have helped Albert Pujols and others start faster. 

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With the first five weeks of the minor league season now complete, it’s time to reflect on the early-season returns of baseball’s top 10 prospects.

The big story thus far has been Taijuan Walker, who is dominating in his second tour of Double-A. Over his last five starts, the right-hander has allowed only two earned runs on 13 hits in 30 innings. Meanwhile, Zack Wheeler has finally adjusted to the notoriously hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League and fired back-to-back gems for Triple-A Las Vegas.

In terms of hitters, Xander Bogaerts has officially busted out of his early-season funk at the dish with a 1.060 OPS over his last 10 games. The right-handed hitter has finally found his power stroke too, as he’s now homered in consecutive games entering Monday.

Here’s a look at how the rest of Prospect Pipeline’s top 10 prospects have fared so far this season.  

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The 2013 Major League Baseball draft is exactly one month away, so what better time to take our first in-depth look at what to expect from the annual extravaganza than providing our thoughts on what will go down. 

But instead of just providing you with a standard, run-of-the-mill mock, we wanted to change up the formula a little bit to bring in a little diversity. I, along with my fellow B/R prospect writer Mike Rosenbaum, will run through the entire first round with our idea of what each team will do. 

We will be providing our selections for all 33 picks of the first round, with alternating analysis from both of us on each pick. Rosenbaum kicks things off with the first pick. 

For more draft talk, be sure to follow me on Twitter @adamwells1985. You can also follow Mike on Twitter by clicking here. 

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It’s only a little over a month into the Major League Baseball season—meaning all statistics still represent a small sample size—but many of the game’s top rookies are off to a hot start.

At the same time, there are several highly regarded young players who have struggled—some even mightily—to begin the season. While some of them will be encouraged to work through their scuffles in the majors, others will face an inevitable demotion if they don’t right turn things around in a hurry.

With so many notable prospects starting the season in the major leagues, it’s never too early to speculate about the Rookie of the Year Award. Therefore, I will break down the race in each league on a weekly basis this season with a detailed look at certain prospects' stock.

Here’s a look at how some of the top rookies have fared through the first three weeks of the season.

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Although this is only the fourth installment highlighting the hottest and coldest pitching prospects in the minor leagues, it’s become increasingly obvious that there will always be more of the “good” than the “bad”.

Granted a lot of the eye-popping numbers are products of either small sample size and/or age vs. level, but there’s also a large contingent of young hurlers that have flat out dominated.

That being said, here’s a look at the hottest and coldest pitching prospects at every minor league level through the first month of the 2013 season.

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The pressure on prospects in Major League Baseball to perform puts every little thing they do under such an intense microscope that if they aren't living up to their billing right out of the gate, some will be ready to give up on them. 

One month into the minor league season isn't enough to give a proper judgement of where players are in their development, but we can see some things they have to start working on changing for the future. 

Baseball is a humbling game. Even the best players will fail a lot more than succeed. The key is to make sure the successes come at the expense of a prolonged slump. The superstars are able to do that, while the pretenders get weeded out in the minors. 

Here is our look at the top prospect for each team who came out of the gate this season stumbling over the weight of expectations, youth and inexperience. 

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While small sample sizes from the first month of any season can be misleading, they do at least offer some insight as to where a certain player is at developmentally. In the prospect realm, this involves gauging a player’s improvement and overall progress relative to their minor-league track record.

Now that most everyday position prospects have played in roughly 20-25 games, and most pitchers have made a handful of starts, a lot of the once eye-popping numbers posted in April should regress to the norm. However, before that inevitably takes place, it’s time to look back at the month’s top performers.

Here’s a breakdown of baseball’s all-prospect team for the month of April.

C: Kevin Plawecki, New York Mets

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Given the recent shakeup of the Seattle Mariners’ middle infield, it’s only a matter of time until the organization decides to tap into its wealth of talent in the high minors.

That being said, Nick Franklin is doing everything he can at Triple-A Tacoma to reach the major leagues ahead of schedule this season. Through his first 17 games, the switch-hitter is batting .410/.538/.623 with 16 runs scored, seven extra-base and four stolen bases. As a player who has always struck out more than he seemingly should, the 22-year-old’s plate discipline has been outstanding so far with 8/16 K/BB. Franklin is especially hot over his last 10 games with a .500 batting average (17-for-34), 11 RBI and 13 walks.

Having always shown more power and consistency from the left side of the plate, it’s also encouraging that Franklin is already 4-for-7 with four walks against southpaws this season.

Here’s a look at the hottest and coldest hitters at every minor league level through the first month of the season.

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