2012 mock draft time — bring out the 18-wheeler!

We have some exciting division races and the trade wires are burning up. You know what that means — time to look ahead to next year and our mock draft for the 2012 season…

This draft will be different than past years since we will be welcoming three new teams to the fold. As voted on in the offseason, these three new teams will have picks 1, 3 and 5, as well as supplmental picks 16, 17 and 18 at the end of the first round. So this mock draft features a whopping 18 picks.

Remember the retention format is different too — you essentially will be protecting 21 players but losing three of them. So you might be stuck keeping some guys you wouldn’t have dreamed of keeping in past years.

Honestly, doing a mock draft at this point in the year feels like a crapshoot after the first half-dozen players or so. We’ve got about 40 players on our Watch List for first-round consideration, and a lot will depend on the play the next four months of some players who just recently have joined the bigs. This mock draft only considers players who already have spent time in the big leagues.  So without further ado, here are the crappy guys you’ll be stuck with as first-rounders next year.

1. Michael Pineda, SP, Seattle (expansion team) — Big righty is just 21 and already has more than 100 IP as a rookie. He may tail off in the second half but right now he’s sporting a 1.03 WHIP and opponents are hitting less than .200 off him.