Steve Mears: It can take years to analyze the success of a draft

Another First-Year Player Draft is in the books, and it sometimes takes years to analyze the impact of a draft class. The Nationals used to always pick high in the draft when the team was bad. With the success in the standings the last few years, the Nats are now getting draft picks at the lower end of each round. It makes the trades, international signings and other creative acquisitions even more strategic to the on-going future progression of this franchise.

Ryan Zimmerman clearly had the head start on most of these homegrown draftees in the system, and leads the franchise in overall value, with Bryce Harper setting the mark for a season's achievement in his 2015 MVP season, but the 2007 draft could be the Nats' greatest draft of them all.

The 2007 draft success could be traced back to Brad Wilkerson. There is a circuitous route to find how Wilkerson impacted the 2007 draft. Wilkerson was a first-round pick of the Expos in 1998 as the 33rd pick overall. A package of players that included Wilkerson produced the trade in 2006 with the Texas Rangers for Alfonso Soriano. Soriano's great 40-40-40 season rated him as a Type A player, which meant when he signed with another team as a free agent, it would yield a draft pick. When Soriano signed with the Cubs in the following offseason, the Nats received a Type A compensation pick that produced Jordan Zimmermann in the second round of the 2007 draft.

Zimmermann produced draft compensation for the Nats as the 28th pick in last week's draft. That player is Carter Kieboom. If Kieboom becomes a great player, we can follow the roots back to a 1998 Expos draft pick in Nats history.

The 2007 draft looks to be the greatest draft in Nats history and seems to have produced the gifts that keep on giving.

Follow along:

* First round: Ross Detwiler is now Chris Bostick and Abel De Los Santos
* Second round: Zimmermann is now Kieboom
* Third round: Steven Souza is now Trea Turner and Joe Ross
* Fourth round: Derek Norris and others were traded for Gio Gonzalez

Souza was the 100th pick in the 2007 draft, and it just goes to show you that you never know where the diamond in the rough is in these drafts or even within a trade. Souza had a total of 23 major league at-bats in a Nationals uniform. But he was just 23 and had a .130 batting average in those at-bats. Mike Rizzo took Souza and parlayed him into Turner and Ross.

As we watch the Nats prospects progress, you never know what magic Rizzo and staff can spin from a third-round pick.

Steve Mears blogs about the Nationals for Talk Nats. Follow the blog on Twitter: @TalkNats2. His thoughts on the Nationals will appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.