2008 Huntsville Stars vs. 1985 El Paso Diablos

In an earlier post about Laporta, I mentioned the dominance of the Brewers 1985 AA team at El Paso, and I wondered how it would compare to today's Huntsville team.

Huntsville:

Huntsville currently bosts a 39-26 record (.600), tops in the league but just one game ahead of the next two teams.  As a team, they have and an OPS of .853, which is .075 better than their nearest competitor.  As a team, they've jacked 40 percent more home runs than their nearest competitor.  Pitching isn't too shabby either with a team ERA of 3.99 (3rd in the league).

Individually, they are led by Gamel (OPS of 1.097), Laporta (1.028), and Salome (1.000), but even their defensive position players are hitting like Alcides Escobar at SS (.824) and Michael Brantley in center (.841).   On the mound, they have David Welch (6-1, 3.11) and Steve Hammond (6-3, 3.54, striking out about a batter an inning.)

El Paso:

The 1985 team finished in first place, with a record of 86-50 (.632), 13 games ahead of anyone else in the league.  I couldn't locate team statistics too compare with the rest of their league, just individual statistics.  The team was led by 21 yr. old 1B Billy Jo Robidoux (OPS of 1.020, with 23 HRs, and a league leading .342 BA), 23 yr old Joey Meyer (.924 and 37 dingers), and 22 yr old Glenn Braggs (.929 with 20 HR).   These stats may not seem quite as impressive as they really were.  This was the 1980s, when Yount won his two MVPs with OPS of .957 and .895.  On the mound, they had a 22 yr. old Chris Bosio (11-6, 3.82), 23 yr old Dan Plesac (12-5, 4.97), and, for a while, 20 yr. old Juan Nieves (8-2, 3.53).  Each of these guys were striking guys out at a rate of 7 per 9 innings.

I'm not sure which team was more dominant, but I'd like to think that Huntsville has more talent.  The El Paso pitchers went on to have more success than the hitters. Robidoux, Braggs, and Joey Meyer were total busts, whose names became curse words in my household for a while. 

On the positive note, I think scouting has improved substantially since then, especially if the success of Braun, Prince, Hart, etc. is any indication, so I expect big things from Gamel, Laporta, etc.