Around The Horn

The Major League Baseball draft goes off on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, and while it gets nowhere near the hype of the NBA or NFL drafts it certainly is just as important to baseball fans. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays have the first pick. Here are a few of the top prospects to look for:

Jeff Allison, RHP, Peobody, Mass: Allison has pitched 51 innings this year and has not allowed an earned run. Has allowed only seven hits while striking out an unbelievable 118. His fastball has been clocked as high as 98 mph.

Richie Weeks, 2b, Southern University: The junior hit .500 in 2003 with 16 home runs and fifty seven RBIs. Hit .471 for his entire career. He is sure to be a top five pick, if not the first.

Anthony Gwynn, OF, San Diego State: Son of future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn who was his coach at San Diego State this past season. Hit .359 this year, is a good defensive CF with very good speed.

Chris Lubanski, OF, Norristown, PA: The high school senior hit .528 this season, he has tremendous speed and a plus arm in the outfield. Gatorade High School National Player of the Year for 2003.

Delmon Young, OF, Camarillo, CA: The younger brother of Detroit Tiger Dimitri Young. Many project him as the number two pick. Hit .544 this season. has excellent power. Baseball America's Youth Player of the Year in 2002.

Trading Places: Red Sox fans are going to miss Shea Hillenbrand. He is a blue-collar kind of player. He is a gritty, down in the dirt kind of guy, who you want up in a big situation. Ask Mariano Rivera. He also only makes a wee bit over $407,000 so he is a commodity that many teams would be interested in. So why trade him? Well if you haven't noticed there are very few teams in the majors that do not have a need for pitching. The Red Sox surely do, with Pedro Martinez on the shelf (they actually had to start Bruce Chen twice against the Yankees), Derrick Lowe struggling and John Burkett holding up the back end of the rotation. And, we haven't even mentioned the bullpen yet

In Byung-Hyun Kim the Sox get a 24-year-old pitcher who can start, (most likely only until Pedro gets back) or close, having saved 36 games last season. While Kim's 1-5 record this year is far from impressive on the outside, he has a respectable 3.56 ERA and has had very little run support from the anemic Diamondback offense. Kim has nasty stuff.

It takes a few seasons to determine if a trade works out or not, but this looks like a good one for both teams. The Diamondbacks get a bat they can put behind Luis Gonzalez, and the Red Sox get a young established pitcher with the flexibility to start or close.

The Boss Speaks: George Steinbrenner took a few jabs at his manager this past week, telling all that the organization went out and got the players he wanted and now it was up to him to get them to perform. Pretty good stuff. All of a sudden it's Joe Torre who tells Steinbrenner who the Yankees should add. Was it Joe Torre who wanted Hideki Matsui? Or Jose Contreras? Was it Torre who brought in all these guys in the bullpen that he is afraid to even pitch?

Rondell White, the guy the Yankees ran out of town to make room for Matsui went three for four Sunday night, with a home run, his 10th. White is hitting over .290 and has 30 RBIs in an awful Padre lineup. Matsui is batting .254 with three homers and 33 RBIs.

This is not to say that Matsui cannot play, he can. He is a pretty good outfielder with good baseball instincts. The whispers are however that he will not come close to hitting with the power that was expected. He hit 50 home runs in Japan last year.

Strike: Curt Schilling was fined a reported $15,000 for smashing a QuesTec camera with his bat on May 24.

QuesTec is an umpire evaluating system that basically grades umpires calls on balls and strikes during the course of a game. It reads each pitch and keeps a tally on which calls where correct or incorrect.

The system is only used in 10 major league parks: Anaheim, Arizona, Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Milwaukee, Oakland, Tampa Bay, and the two in New York.

Schilling thinks the umpires are squeezing the strike zone at home and at the other parks using the system.

If umpires don't score at least a 90 percent they will not be made eligible for the choice assignments (this equals money).

Schillings era at home is 4.39 in six starts, while on the road he has an era of 1.52 in four starts.

Maybe he has a point? Stay tuned.

Hot? The Toronto Blue Jays... sweep the Yanks, and Red Sox.

Cool? Interleague play.

Must Know Category: Todd Zeile hit his homer number 238 of his career, passing Gus Zernial for the most ever by a player whose last name begins with a "Z."