June 7, 2010 at 10:27 PM
Best Available Players for Day Two
Plenty of top talents are available heading into the second day of the MLB Draft. We saw plenty of reaches from teams during the first 50 picks, leaving a number of players to sweat out their draft status for another day. According to the final Baseball America rankings, 16 of the top 50 prospects heading into the draft are still available, including high schoolers Stetson Allie (BA 15/Perfect Game 14) and Austin Wilson (BA 28/PG 36), college pitcher Brandon Workman (BA 20/PG 16) and two-way player Brett Eibner (BA 23/PG 28).
Allie is a hard-throwing righty from Ohio with a high-90's fastball who is committed to North Carolina. Wilson, a toolsy outfielder out of California, has a strong commitment to Stanford that has scared teams away. Both could be steals if they sign, but no teams saw fit to use a top-50 pick on either. Workman has a 3.43 ERA this year in Texas and is striking out more than a batter per inning with an impressive fastball/curveball combination, but could have signability issues. Eibner, whose Arkansas teammate Zach Cox also fell in the draft, tops out at 97 MPH on the mound and hit 21 home runs for the Razorbacks in 2010. Despite correcting both this season, he struggled with control in 2009 and hit just .231.
Also of note and still on the board are Florida high school pitcher A.J. Cole (BA 25/PG 27), shortstops Yordy Cabrera (BA 35/PG 34) and Jedd Gyorko (BA 37/PG 47), and former Kentucky pitcher James Paxton (BA 47/PG 41), a lefty who was third in the NCAA in K/9 in 2009 and has been pitching for Grand Prairie of the independent American Association.