People are paying more attention to the MLB draft now. What with the publicity blitz MLB put on the thing last year who wouldn’t? I’ve been late getting on the bandwagon but I’m going to give it a shot — I’m that much more interested in amateur baseball due to my new gig.

Incidentally the first round of the Korean draft will happen June 6, the same day, (well…it’ll be the same time as the MLB draft is June 5) as the MLB amateur draft. Unlike the American version, the second, third and so on rounds of the Korean draft won’t happen until August.

My point is…before I go to far astray…I like John Sickles Minor League Ball site and I’m going to mostly rely on it to get up to speed on this year’s North American talent base. He’s got a nice write up of the Top 12 pitchers in this year’s draft. Brian Matusz (pictured above), a lefty from the University of San Diego is expected to be one of the top picks. Sickles has him at No. 2.

Saberscouting has been on it too and issued a partial mock draft I’m sure they’ll be updating in the near future. This week they released a list of late rising prospects as well.