Wondering what Greg Vaughn is up to? The guy I sat behind in Vaughn's Valley in 1993 who screamed "HIT IT GONE, VAUGHN!" for the. entire. game. is, I'm sure. Check out a short video clip of him helping out with his son Cory's summer league team, the La Crosse Loggers (hat tip to Mass Haas at brewerfan.net). I didn't realize this, but Cory Vaughn plays at San Diego State, coached by Tony Gwynn. Kind of neat.
Mound Talk just put up their new Top 50 Prospects list, and four Brewers made the cut. LaPorta is #2 overall (up from 5), Mat Gamel is #13 (from 16), and Angel Salome and Jeremy Jeffress make their debuts on the list at #46 and #49, respectively.
It seems like everyone's talking about LaPorta and Gamel these days, and with good reason: According to Al, according to another guy, according to Peter Gammons, some other guy says that Huntsville is the best prospect team he's ever seen. Marc Hulet at FanGraphs joins the fun, even ripping off my comment about their defensive abilities.
The same Marc Hulet, this time at Baseball Analysts, is putting together an All-Star team made up of AAA players not considered among their team's top 20 prospects, and our own M. "Ike" DiFelice made the team. In a world where David Riske can earn $4M a year on the open market, how much is DiFelice not walking anyone (literally) out of the bullpen worth? What do you mean, no "in a world"?
In other minor league news, catcher Mike Roberts, the Brewers' 38th-round pick out of VMI in the draft last month, had a hell of a professional debut for Helena, hitting a three-run homer on the first pitch he saw, and adding a two-run double and two runs later (listen to the audio). You can read the interview I did with him here.
Finally, I'm breaking the moratorium on linking to the JS for these gems:
How hot is J.J. Hardy?and
Have I mentioned lately how hot Hardy is?I'm sure he'd warm up with you anytime, Tom.