ESPN.com's Keith Law revealed his second mock draft on Monday night and he rates UCLA right-hander Gerrit Cole as the top prospect. The Pirates hold the first overall pick in next week's MLB First-Year Player Draft. "The Pirates are still seriously on Danny Hultzen and Bubba Starling, and I wouldn't rule Anthony Rendon out entirely, but my gut tells me right now they'll find Cole's raw stuff -- he hit 101 for me on Friday night and touched 100 many times, including in the eighth inning -- too good to pass up," Law writes.

Pirates general manager Neal Huntington, who will make the first overall pick in next month's First-Year Player Draft, doesn't believe this year's selection is clear-cut. "There is not a clear-cut No. 1 this year," Huntington said. "That's why we continue to work. That's why we continue to follow a handful of players and do our due diligence. You like to have a unanimous pick at No. 1 like you did a couple years ago with [Stephen] Strasburg. We don't have it this year."

The University of Connecticut, long regarded as a college baseball doormat, seems likely to have two first-round picks in next month's First-Year Player Draft. The Huskies have a rich baseball history that tracks back eight decades, but they've only had one player -- former big leaguer Charles Nagy -- who was taken in the first round since the institution of the Draft in 1965. Now, outfielder George Springer and right-handed pitcher Matt Barnes appear to be on the fringe of changing that. "I think we're starting to put ourselves on a national stage and people really recognize us as a good program now," Barnes said. "When I got here, it was on its way up, and people knew that we had a chance to do some things. Predominantly, it was a basketball school, and football was starting to make a name for itself. We weren't really nationally known in baseball when I got here, but the last two years, we've definitely done a pretty good job of changing that." UConn has gone to the College World Series just five times in its program history, and it hasn't managed to make it that far since 1979. The Huskies, ranked No. 18 in the country by Baseball America, set the team record for victories (48) last season, and they're two wins shy of winning the Big East regular-season title for the first time.

The general consensus is that the Class of 2011 is one of the strongest and deepest pools of amateur talent that has come around for some time. "It's good this year," one scouting director admitted. "One of the better ones I've seen in a while. There's a little bit of everything. There's good general depth. It's a lot better than it was in 2010." Fans can find out just how much better it is by tuning in to coverage of the 2011 First-Year Player Draft on Monday, June 6, at 7 p.m. ET on MLB.com and MLB Network.