Or maybe that Huntsville team you are referring to had so much talent that they all just fed off one another since just about everyone from that team but Gamel and Salome are playing in MLB. David Price was one of the pitchers that season who shut them down early when the full line-up was intact and in that game Gamel homered off of him. Here's a link to that team, look how many bolded names are that list, it's unheard of to have that many prospects on 1 team at the same time. http://www.baseball-refer...ors/team.cgi?id=69f58fd1 If you look at the SL leader boards for hitting, you'll find 2-3 players in a given year with an OPS over .900 and they are usually decent prospects, though there are players way too old for the league having success as well. The players above an .800 OPS are mostly a who's who of legitimate position prospects in the league... Alex Liddi, Josh Bell, Desmond Jennings, Mike Stanton just to name a few. Of course you'll always find some non prospecs having success in any given year as well. The farthest year back MiLB has is 2005 and the biggest name now on the OPS leaderboard then, Dan Uggla with an .880 OPS for qualified batters, there were actually 4 players with an OPS over .900 that year. Farther down the list were Russell Martin, Delwyn Young, and Elijah Dukes. Year in and year out the Southern League has fantastic talent in it. In 2003, the year Hart won the league MVP, there were nine players with more than 400 PAs in the League with a higher OPS than him, Miguel Cabrera had a 1.038 OPS in 303 PAs but was promoted directly to MLB and the rest is history. Jeremy Reed had an even better season than Miggy, in 3 less games at the level. It's too bad he's never hit at MLB like he did in the minors. Had the better prospects stayed in the league all season he wouldn't have won the award, he had some good fortune to be the youngest player with the most ABs left standing. The league hasn't changed much over the years and basing your claim that it has based on the relative success of 1 HVL team seams unresearched at best.