Tonight I got the chance to hear Doug Melvin speak at a banquet in Madison, so I thought I would highlight some of the key points that he discussed.  A lot is old news, but I figured some of it might be interesting, knowing it came straight from him.

(1)  Sheets.  Doug gave the impression that Sheets' career is over as a Brewer.  He said they haven't closed the door to a return, but he expects him to be elsewhere when the season starts.

(2)  Prince Fielder - Melvin said that trading Prince would require a 1 or 2 starter (no big surprise) and that he hasn't talked to any teams about a trader and nobody has contacted him, probably because they know the asking price and teams don't have that kind of pitching to give up.

(3)  The starting rotation.  The Brewers are still looking to solidify the rotation, but he didn't discuss details here.  He gave four starters that are set in stone - Gallardo, Parra, Bush, Suppan.  Doug talked about McClung's versitility, but didn't like his high pitch counts and the void in the bullpen moving him to a starting spot would create.  As for Capuano, he said he is a possibility to fill up a starting spot, but said it probably wouldn't happen until early May sometime.

(4)  Third base - left this one wide open, basically as a competition between Hall, Mike Lamb, and mentioned Gamel at the end (didn't give many details as to a timetable on him).

(5)  Other interesting sidenotes...

     -Kendall and Cameron had a big part in getting Hoffman to come to Milwaukee instead of LA, which is obviously much closer to Trevor's home.

     -Hoffman has won the Roberto Clemente community service award somewhere around five times.

     -The Brewers have already hit the 1 million tickets sold mark for 2009 sales.

     -Ray Durham, along with several other major league free agents, are considering retirement if the money isn't right.

Hope everyone enjoyed, and at least found a couple things that they found interesting or new.