The June draft may be a little over a month and a half away, but the Rays have been on the clock since the end of the 2007 season. Another finish at the bottom of the standings means the Rays once again will be picking first overall in June, and this year it seems four players are "in the running" to be selected, though by no means are the Rays excluding everybody else. Continuing today, we'll take a look at a candidate each day(well, sorta), culminating Friday with my first mock draft of the spring as well as your chance to vote for who you think the pick should be. Today we profile Brian Matusz, a left-handed pitcher from University of San Diego, and Tim Beckham, a high school SS from Georgia, after the jump.

Brian Matusz, LHP, USD

Matusz entered the season neck-and-neck with Crow as far as being the top college pitcher, and while Crow had that dominant scoreless streak, Matusz has hung with him in draft rankings all year long.

While Crow boasts a faster fastball and a slide-ier slider, Matusz has the natural advantage of being left-handed, a wider repertoire, and, some would argue, a higher ceiling than his Missouri counterpart. Matusz stands 6'4" and weighs an athletic 193 pounds, giving him a more ideal frame than Crow. He works in the 88-92 MPH range with his fastball, sometimes reaching 94, complementing it with two potential plus off-speed pitches, his curveball and his changeup.

The 21-year old(who turns 22 next offseason) is on his way to a second straight season of domination in the WCC. He may be facing slightly lesser competition than some other top college guys, but his stuff and stats are for real: So far this year, Matusz is 7-1 with a 1.99 ERA, allowing 46 hits, 18 walks, and 13 earned runs in 58.2 innings. He has struck out 80 batters in that span. Last season, Matusz boasted a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 163:37 in 123 innings.

The one knock on Brian Matusz is that he's not the type of prospect David Price was last year, where you can easily see "ace" written all over him. To be sure, Brian Matusz is a very, very good pitcher who could very well grow into an ace, and he looks like a relatively "safe" pick, but a lot of people see him topping out as a #2-type pitcher. A very nice piece to have, but is it a piece you want to draft #1 overall?

For kicks, if he was drafted by the Rays, I figure he would follow the same sort of progression that I had for Crow: Limited innings this year in Columbus, starting 2009 at Vero Beach, potentially reaching the majors by the end of '09, arriving for good in 2010. Again, that's assuming health and relative success.

Tim Beckham, SS, Griffin (Ga.) HS

The lone high schooler to establish himself as a sure-fire top-5 pick, Beckham is a premier athlete who can pretty much do it all and make it look easy.

He currently stands at 6'2" and weighs 190, and while he should grow some more, he won't outgrow the SS position, where he has a chance to become a gold-glove caliber defender someday. There were some questions about his bat entering the 2008 season, but Beckham has slowly turned the Matt Bush whispers into B.J. and Justin Upton whispers.

I don't think he's quite the prospect that those two were coming out of HS, but he's got 5-tool potential and he's already shown capabilities of reaching it. He's the most polished HS player in the draft and should be the on the fast track to the majors. He won't hit the power that the Uptons do, but still has 20-25 HR potential from the SS position. He was the MVP of the Aflac All-American Classic, showing all his tools. He can really run, and will rack up SBs and could be among the league leaders in triples.

As a HS player, it's just simply harder to find information on him. Aside from the normal "HS draftees are more of a risk!" people, there aren't too many knocks on Beckham, who will play the whole season at 18 years old, turning 19 in the offseason. Certainly the normal caveats apply, but Beckham appears relatively safe as far as high school draftees go.

Let's say he was drafted by the Rays. Hopefully a deal could get done well before the August 15th deadline, since in contrast to pitchers, you want him to play as much as possible this season. Whenever he signs, he'd likely be off to Princeton, though the new Rays management don't really have a track record as far as fast-track HS players go. If he really tears it up, he could get promoted to Hudson Valley and then begin 2009 with Columbus, where he'd likely be slowed down and held there a while, perhaps the whole year, unless he absolutely dominates. Then he would go to Vero Beach as a 20-year old in 2010, and from there his performance would dictate how quickly he moves through the upper reaches of the minors.

Remember, coming tomorrow is your chance to vote on who you'd take #1, as well as a look at some of the less-heralded long-shot candidates(Kyle Skipworth, Eric Hosmer, and Justin Smoak) plus my first mock 1st round of the year.