Huntsville Stars catcher Angel Salome cringes when he sees video of himself at the plate.

"When they take pictures of me, I'm like, 'Oh my God, what am I doing up there?' " Salome said. "To be honest with you, I don't know how I manage to hit the ball sometimes. I'm natural."

This article should be of particular interest to dixie, who had some concerns about Salome's stance when he saw the Stars play earlier this year.

Brewers players on the list:

Omar Aguilar
Mat Gamel
Jeremy Jeffress
Alex Periard
Angel Salome
David Welch
Brae Wright

You'll notice the absence of Michael Brantley, which is strange considering his agent said he was going to be on the team. I don't know if that's related to the epic ongoing Sabathia PTBNL saga or what.

"Stars center fielder Lorenzo Cain is out for the year with a pulled hamstring suffered Thursday night in Birmingham."

Fortunately, the year isn't very much longer. This could affect whether or not he's assigned to the Arizona Fall League, though.

When jihad posted a video he'd taken of Brad Schreiber, one of the best high schoolers in the state, I emailed it to a few of the preeminent mechanics analysts on the web, including Kyle from Driveline Mechanics. Kyle ran with it, resulting in this awesome post, which is way above and beyond the simple blurb I expected him to respond with.

Thanks so much, Kyle (and to jihad for the vid, of course).

Next revision of the prospect list, this guy is gonna be on it. Peralta was signed along with the more-hyped Rolando Pascual in 2005, but pitched unimpressively as a 17-year-old in the Arizona League in 2006 before missing all of 2007 with Tommy John surgery. This year he's pitched well for Helena while serving mostly as their closer, posting a 36/8 K/BB in 29.3 innings; however, for 19-year-old kids in the low minors, scouting reports are just as important as numbers, and as Erik Miller and Nick Tyson have reported, Peralta has some serious stuff, namely a mid-90s fastball and a hard, late-breaking mid-80s slider.

I've been talking to Mike Newman, who runs the excellent Baseball Handyman, about Peralta, and I think Mike willl have a piece up on him tomorrow. Peralta is one to watch for sure.

His competition is Rays uber-pitching prospect David Price, Pirates Orioles catching stud Matt Wieters, A's arriviste Trevor Cahill, and the inexplicably-traded-for-Casey Blake Carlos Santana, AKA exhibit 39(f) in Los Angeles Dodgers Base-Ball Club vs. their minor league prospects.

Prince Fielder won the award in 2003, and Gabe Kapler won it way back in 1998, when he was in the Tigers organization.

"I really don't have any idea what happened. I mean, I have probably more information that most people just because it was about me, but it's a bad situation. I hope that by next year I really don't get any more questions about this; I hope it's more in the past. For me being able to move on mentally, just let that go in the past, it's over with. People are gonna say what they want still. I still get crap all the time in the stands, people saying stuff, and I 100 percent understand that. What happened is unfortunate. It's not what people think.

I didn't do something illegal to make me better. I'm the same player I was last year. I didn't do anything to increase my performance last year. If you ask anybody in the organization, ask the people that have been around me, they know how hard I work. They know my workouts in the offseason. (Former Braves and current Rangers shortstop) Elvis Andrus, he's my best friend, he came and stayed with me in the offseason. (Myrtle Beach shortstop) Brandon Hicks came and stayed with me in the offseason, worked out with me, and our workouts are like 10 hours a day. Nobody matches those workouts. You can go anywhere. I mean, people work out for two hours a day and they think that's a hard workout. It's more than just going to the field—there's so many different aspects that you have to improve on. If people want to know how I get better, if you want to come out in the offseason and watch me do my workouts, I'm more than happy—come out and watch me. Come out for a week, watch the whole a week. Anybody that wants to come out and watch, come out and watch, I have no problem with it, if they really want to know how I've gotten so much better."