An efficient amateur scouting department begets a strong minor league system which in turn begets a successful major league team.

Teams navigate choppy waters to get from point A to point B to point C, losing many prospects to burnout or injury along the way. A relative few will make it through unscathed this season to make their big league debuts.

Behind each of those debuts stands a scout and/or a scouting director who at one point put his job on the line to recommend that player. To give credit where credit is due, we’ll track those scouts and those directors for each player to make the big leagues for the first time in 2011.

Players are sorted in alphabetical order by debut date. Included with each listing is signing organization, year and draft round in parentheses, where applicable. Source indicates the high school, college or country from which each player signed his contract with a major league organization. The BA Executive Database supplies the names of scouting directors.

Players listed with an asterisk (*) were major league Rule 5 draft selections in December 2010, while a cross (†) indicates players who were drafted one year and signed the next as part of baseball’s defunct draft-and-follow process.