It’s almost here, it’s almost here! The MLB draft is next week, and at this point we already know that the Washington Nationals will sign Stephen Strasburg, and the only mystery is how historically big his signing bonus and contract will be.
This man and his million strikeouts will be very rich in a week.
But let’s take a look at a few of the guys who will be drafted after Strasburg, shall we? We might be seeing them in the Majors someday, after all…These aren’t in a particular order, but the list is loosely based off this MVN Outsider community mock draft.
UNC's Dustin Ackley knows his way around a batter's box.
Lost in some of the pitching hype surrounding Strasburg is Dustin Ackley, a 1B/OF who has hit over .400 in his three years at North Carolina. His OPB in his first two years was .448 and .503. Goodness.
I'd be smirking too if I could throw like that as a HS senior.
This kidlet is Jacob Turner, a pitcher at the Westminster Christian Academy. He can throw 98 and apparently has decent control over those fastballs, too. Heh, balls.
Alex White, RHP.
Another Tar Heel who could go pretty high is right-hander Alex White, a junior from Greenville, NC. (Note: most places don’t have White ranked as high as the GMs in the mock draft we’re using. But I’ll go with him here, because he’s A) kind of cute and B) not so young we’d feel dirty thinking so.)
This is Tyler Matzek, who is wearing the AFLAC duck.
Tyler Matzek is a tall left-handed high school pitcher, against whom opponents are hitting just .153.
Well, those are all the future Major Leaguers we have time for today. Check back on Draft Day – next Tuesday – for more!
I hate Strasburg. I hate his dumb beard and his bad mechanics. That’s right, I am straight-up DISSING his mechanics. Dude’s gonna fail, big-time.
Alex White, though? I don’t mind him at all.
Weird. At first glance I thought Tyler Matzek looked like Kyle Busch.