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.

my disappointment about Brewers slow start combined with that John Donovan article has me thinking rash thoughts... like maybe we should try trading Prince for some young starting pitching.  Prince for Lincecum might have worked for both teams a month ago, but I doubt it now, but maybe a notch down from Lincecum. 

Prince may be the heart and soul of the team, but he is also fairly easy to replace with someone quality, and we do have Laporta and Gamel with no place to play.  Plus, we can be sure that we'll be losing him soon enough anyway (either via Boras or eating himself out of the league).   I guess if come July, we're still out of it and could pull the trigger to get some good quality, young pitching in return, I think I might be okay with it?

Or has disappointment driven me insane?

He has the Brewers with the 3rd best rotation in the NL (behind Arizona and LA, and ahead of Atlanta):

From the article:

Milwaukee Brewers (14 points)

Above-average (9): Ben Sheets, Carlos Villanueva, Yovani Gallardo

Average to above-average (4): Jeff Suppan, Chris Capuano

Up-and-coming (1): Manny Parra

Below-average (0): David Bush, Claudio Vargas

Comment: Villenueva and Gallardo might not be national names (compared to Sheets, anyway), but they are the keys to making the Brewers' rotation among the tops in the league. Suppan and Capuano could be as good as you'll find in the No. 4 and No. 5 slots of an NL rotation -- and Bush has his fans as well.

Here's the link:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jon_weisman/12/20/nl.rotations/index.html

Every one has made a big deal about our home-road split, but our night vs. day split is also pretty stark:

 49-27 home, 32-49 road
 59-45 night, 22-31 day

Do any of our stat guys no whether these are separate trends, or whether it's just that our home games are disproportionately night games?  I remember that it was our pitching that was the big difference between home and road (at least earlier in the season).  Does anyone know whether this is the same with the night-day split?

Our first round pick, LaPorta, is just tearing up the low minors this year:  10 HRs, 27 RBI, .318/.392/.750 in 23 games at West Virginia this summer.

LaPorta was regarded as perhaps the best hitter in college baseball when we drafted him.  Now that's a small sample, but those numbers are Braunian.  I think it's at least safe to say he's recovered from his thigh injury, and adjusted well to a wooden bat.

Questions for discussion:

1. How has his defense been?  Has anyone seen him play?
2. Will he be invited to spring training (I assume yes)?  
3. Is there any outside chance he could be up by all-star break next year taking Menchkins spot?  
4. Since his natural position is 1st base, and he's a Boras client like Prince, were the Brewers stupid for drafting him?  (It seems like there's a conflict of interest... if Boras encourages Prince to leave when he's eligible, then he opens up a spot at first base for LaPorta)

I was talking to a marginal Brewers fan the other day, who refused to get excited by their success and was convinced that they were going to tank this year.  I tried to explain the young talent, and said, "Mark my words, these guys may not spend their careers with the Brewers, but some of these guys will be perennial All-stars, maybe even Hall of Famers".  I know I'm a homer, but here's my discussion question: 1) How many (if any) current players on the Brewers will end up in the Hall of Fame? and 2) Who would be most likely?  

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