Brackman is draft's big question mark

N.C. State junior right-hander Andrew Brackman, projected as a high first-round draft pick early this season, enters today's Major League Baseball draft as a question mark.

An inflamed right elbow limited Brackman to four innings in the last six weeks of the season, causing his stock to drop with some major league scouts.

"He is the biggest enigma in the draft," said Alan Matthews, associate editor of Baseball America, a Triangle-based magazine that surveys scouts each year and rates college and high school players as the draft approaches.

"Six weeks ago, I was talking to a scout about whether [Brackman] was going to be the No. 6 or 7 pick overall, and now I don't think there is any question that he has fallen out of the first round," Matthews said.

N.C. State coach Elliott Avent said Wednesday that he did not want to speculate on where Brackman would be drafted.

"Nobody really knows," Avent said. "He didn't pitch the last month of the season, but we'll just have to watch TV tomorrow, and we'll be rooting like the dickens for him. It's about where he's going to be in five years, and we all hope it's in the major leagues."

Brackman, a 6-foot-10 two-sport star who hit 99 mph on the radar gun last year in the Cape Cod League, a collegiate summer league, to establish himself as a potential first-round pick, decided not to play basketball this past season to concentrate on baseball.

He finished the season with a 6-4 record and a 3.81 ERA, pitching 78 innings -- more than his previous two combined (71 1/3 total). But his durability came into question when he developed elbow problems.

After pitching four innings on May 12, Brackman did not pitch again, missing the ACC Tournament and the Wolfpack's NCAA regional appearance at Columbia, S.C., last week.

"He was staring four or five million [dollars] in the face six weeks ago as long as he stayed healthy," Matthews said. "But it's all unraveled for him faster than I could recall for a top prospect."

Brackman's draft status is complicated by the fact he is a two-sport athlete and his adviser is Scott Boras, one of the toughest negotiators in baseball.

In a sampling of mock drafts on the Web on Wednesday, Brackman was still listed as a first-rounder. The list on yahoo.com had Brackman No. 18 overall, and the mlb.com list had the right-hander No. 24.

North Carolina junior shortstop Josh Horton also is expected to be picked early in the 50-round draft that begins at 2 p.m. today and will be televised live for the first time (2-6 p.m., ESPN2).

Horton, a junior from Orange High in Hillsborough, was an All-America as a sophomore when he hit .395 and helped lead the Tar Heels to a runner-up finish in the College World Series.

Horton has backed it up with a solid 2007 season, hitting .333 and being chosen MVP of the ACC Tournament and the NCAA regional at Chapel Hill last week.

The Heels will host South Carolina in a super regional this weekend at Boshamer Stadium.

"Horton was a kind of a fringe player [draft-wise] out of high school," Matthews said. "Everybody thought he had potential to develop into a top two- or three-round pick if he went to college. That's what happened. He should go in the first two rounds."

Relief pitchers Andrew Carignan of North Carolina and Shane Mathews of East Carolina, both of whom throw above 90 mph consistently, should be picked today.

In Baseball America's list of top 30 prospects in North Carolina, Carignan is rated as the No. 8 prospect in the state and Mathews is at No. 10. Duke outfielder Jimmy Gallagher is rated No. 9.

Five of the magazine's top 10 prospects in the state are high school players.

Left-hander Madison Bumgarner of South Caldwell is expected to be a first-round pick, and shortstop Justin Jackson of Asheville Roberson should go in the first two rounds.