Thursday's Frosty Mug

This morning's Mug is the 998th in BCB history. Thanks to Rubie Q for helping me count down the days to The Night of (Approximately) 1000 Mugs on Tuesday at Rounding Third. C'mon out for a good time with all of us.

Some things to read while filing everything under "S."

We're 51 days away from pitchers and catchers reporting to Maryvale and it looks like the Brewers (like the Twins and presumably others) are taking the week off for the holidays. As such, it's time for more year in review posting: Jeremy Walsh of the Lake County Record-Bee listed the Ryan Braun controversy as the tenth biggest story in all of sports in 2011.

Since I've already brought him up, here's a quick list of other Braun notes:

• Braun is one of three current or former Brewers on Dave Cameron of FanGraphs' list of active players with a chance at making the Hall of Fame.
• Miller Park Drunk is giving you until midnight tonight to order from the "final" printing of "Free Ryan Braun" shirts. The last "final" printing wasn't actually the last one, but there's a chance this one could be.

And let's move along to Prince Fielder stories:

• Richard Justice of MLB.com has a look at Scott Boras' role in all of this.
• Baseball Historian has something you may not have heard - Prince Fielder is heavy and teams should think about that before signing him. In other news, tomorrow will be Friday.
• Lookout Landing has another installment of PRINCE FIELDER WATCH 2011.
  

Keeping up with today's bullet point theme, here's "in the minors:"

• Minor League Baseball Prospects listed Wily Peralta #1 on their collection of the best Brewers under age 25.
• Martin Maldonado had three hits last night as Mayaguez cruised to an 11-6 win over Caguas in Puerto Rico. You can read about that and more in today's Winter League Notes.

That's all of today's Brewer news, unless you wanted to talk about Nyjer Morgan's zip-lining.

Around baseball:

Giants: Signed pitcher Boof Bonser to a minor league deal.
Red Sox: Acquired reliever Andrew Bailey and outfielder Ryan Sweeney from the Athletics for outfielder Josh Reddick and two minor leaguers.
Yankees: Signed pitcher Hideki Okajima to a minor league deal.

In former Brewers:

• Dave Cameron of FanGraphs has a comparison of the careers of Robin Yount and Alan Trammell.
• adarowski of Beyond the Box Score has a post ranking catchers by weighted wins above replacement (wWAR). He has Ted Simmons as the tenth best of all time, with former Milwaukee Brave Joe Torre 11th and Darrell Porter 21st.
• I learned something about Jeromy Burnitz today, and I wish I hadn't.

Today's Thursday Thinker will be up shortly, but if you need more Sporcle while you're waiting this is a good one: I was able to correctly guess whether or not 43 of these 60 players ever played for the Expos. (h/t Lone Star Ball)

I mentioned R.A. Dickey's pending climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro earlier this week, but I had no idea that it would lead to Bradley Woodrum of NotGraphs casting Dickey for his cinematic debut.

Based on the fact that you're here on a Thursday morning during the slowest week of the offseason, I'm guessing you have some time on your hands, a strong interest in baseball and at least baseline knowledge in technology. As such, you might be a candidate for one of these jobs with MLBAM.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I probably should put some pants on.

Drink up.