Some things to read while waiting to see The Fort Wayne Tin Caps' new uniforms. Spoiler alert: The team will most likely not wear tin caps.

It's quiet this morning, but it likely won't stay that way for long as today is the first day teams can offer contracts to free agents from other teams. Brewed Sports wants the Brewers to make an early splash by signing Kerry Wood and Randy Johnson. Tyler Maas of Bugs & Cranks wants the Brewers to sign Eric Hinske. I'm just hoping the Brewers don't sign anyone who will join Eric Gagne, Jeff Suppan and Jeffrey Hammonds on a future version of this top ten list of worst contracts in Wisconsin sports history.

Baseball Digest Daily released their free agent rankings today. Since lists make a short Mug seem longer, here are the Brewer highlights:

• CC Sabathia is the top rated starting pitcher.
• Ben Sheets is the third rated starting pitcher.
• Russell Branyan is ranked third among third basemen.
• Ray Durham is ranked fourth among second basemen.
• Brian Shouse is the fifth rated lefty reliever.
• Mike Lamb is ranked fifth among third basemen.
• Gabe Kapler is ranked sixth among right fielders.
• Guillermo Mota is the sixth rated "utility reliever."
• Eric Gagne is the eighth rated closer.
• Craig Counsell is ranked eleventh among shortstops.

Depending on who you ask, the Mets may or may not make a play for CC Sabathia. MetsBlog downplays the possibility.

Technically, Salomon Torres could have been a free agent as well, but the Brewers exercised his option so he will be under team control if he decides to return. The Official Site has an overview of the bullpen situation.

As noted in the FanShots, Ryan Braun became the eighth Brewer in franchise history to win a Silver Slugger Award yesterday.

If Braun lives up to his Bill James projection for 2009, he might win another one: .301/.364/.620. Bill James projections for individual players are available on the player pages at FanGraphs. If you want the whole collection, you're supposed to buy the book. I sat down yesterday with a notepad file and Baseball Musings' Lineup Analysis tool and discovered that, despite low projections for Mike Cameron and Bill Hall, a 2009 Brewer lineup featuring Weeks, Hardy, Braun, Fielder, Hart, Cameron, Hall, Kendall and the pitcher's spot projects to 4.965 runs per game. The 2008 Brewers only scored 4.630.

While I'm on the subject of stats, R.J. Anderson of Beyond the Box Score is working on numbers to quantify the volume of wins or losses added by a manager. His initial numbers have management costing the Brewers approximately .04 wins in 2008. I'm pretty sure Yost was responsible for more than that.

Does the entire Brewers' organization have defensive problems? No less than five Brewer prospects appear on Recondite Baseball's leaderboards for errors in the minor leagues this season.

Two trades were completed yesterday, one sending Nick Swisher to the Yankees and one sending Kevin Gregg to the Cubs. Two other stove notes today:

D-Backs: Negotiations with Randy Johnson have apparently hit an impasse, leading Johnson to declare free agency.
Marlins: The team is reportedly listening to offers but not actively seeking a trade involving Jeremy Hermida or Dan Uggla.

Do you love physics and want to use it to understand why a sidearmer's pitches have different movement? It's a bit much for me, but maybe Matt Lentzner of The Hardball Times' article is just what you were looking for.

Oh, and NL Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum is perpetuating the theory that he's only 15 by spending the offseason getting braces and a puppy.

Drink up.

Some things to read while staring out the window waiting for spring.

As noted in the FanShots, the NL Gold Gloves were handed out yesterday. No Brewers were selected. Meanwhile, Baseball Musings' Probabilistic Model of Range ranks Brewer shortstops first in all of baseball, and J.J. Hardy as the best full-time defensive shortstop in baseball. The first award will get more publicity, but the second one is the one with the actual correlation to being good at defense. Rollins, by the way, was about the sixth best full-time shortstop.

While we're on the subject of awards, here's two more: CC Sabathia finished fourth in the voting, behind Tim Lincecum, Johan Santana and Brandon Webb in the SB Nation NL Cy Young Voting. Sabathia took third, behind Lincecum and Santana, in Baseball Prospectus' awards.

Also, as noted in the FanShots, CC Sabathia is still telling friends he won't play in New York.

As I write this, 72% of voters in the poll think bringing Mike Cameron back for 2009 was the right decision, with 15% voting no and 12% voting for cheese. That's about what I expected public opinion to be, which is why I was surprised to see almost 60% of voters at JSOnline vote no.

If you are one of the small percentage of BCB readers (or large percentage of JS readers) who want Cameron gone, then you'll be happy to note the rumor that he could be traded to the Yankees for Melky Cabrera and pitching. I guess Cabrera is young and cheap, but for this deal to make sense to me it'd have to net a lot of pitching.

We haven't talked about Corey Hart in a while. According to Beyond the Box Score, Gabe Gross and Nelson Cruz were among the top 25 right fielders in 2008, but Corey Hart was not.

Hot stove notes:

Brave Elmer Dessens filed for free agency.
Dodger Brad Penny had his option for 2009 declined. Also, Russell Martin may not be on the move after all, even for a package that could have netted Scott Olsen and Dan Uggla.
Marlin Scott Olsen could be acquired for a catcher - the Marlins have targeted Ranger Max Ramirez.
White Sox Javier Vazquez and Nick Swisher are reportedly on the trading block.

Drink up.

Some things to read while looking for the perfect Scrabble word.

There's not exactly a litany of fresh stuff out there, but there is some more stuff about the managerial search: Tom H. says Willie Randolph interviewed yesterday and Buck Showalter is not a candidate. In-Between Hops has some tidbits and facts about Bob Brenly. Chuckie Hacks is still rooting for Ken Macha. There's an off-day during the World Series Friday, so it's possible the Brewers could request permission to announce a winner then.

In Seattle, some were predicting the Mariners would announce their new GM yesterday, but it didn't happen. There's also a rumor floating around that the Mariners will wait until after the World Series and interview retiring Phillies GM Pat Gillick. John Hickey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer squashed that one. U.S.S. Mariner likes all the options and just hopes the new GM will be allowed to clean house. Again, since an announcement wasn't made yesterday, Friday is the first day it could happen.

Mike Cameron leads the field of potential free agent center fielders. Brewed Sports is calling Cameron the free agent signing of the year. Certainly he was a better investment than one of those squirting flowers.

Remember the walk-off grand slam Ryan Braun hit against the Pirates this season? Want to re-live it over and over? Here's the iPhone commercial featuring it.

The World Series starts tonight, as you might have heard. I won't burn too much space here analyzing it, as I'm sure you've heard about it already. I will, though, point you to the only World Series preview I read, over at WhatIfSports.

Also worth noting: During the draft in Moneyball, Billy Beane is excited, to put it mildly, to see Scott Kazmir and Cole Hamels go off the board so he can draft Nick Swisher. Swisher is having a nice MLB career, to be sure, but Kazmir and Hamels will start game 1 of the World Series tonight.

Of course, on the bad decision scale Billy Beane is still light years behind Jim Bowden, who was diagnosed with skin cancer in June but waited to undergo treatment until this week, since he didn't want to miss a week of his job as GM of the National League's worst team. Here's hoping he doesn't end up regretting that one.

Here's a guy who will get a minor league deal somewhere and make it worth someone's time: the Rockies have released 2B Jayson Nix.

The youth movement continues in Cincinnati, as the Reds have extended offers for 2009 to David Weathers (38) and Jerry Hairston (32).

It's a study in contrast: Joe Posnanski shows how being willing to work harder than anyone else can pay off, and Home Run Derby shows that no matter how determined you are, if you can't run down stairs or climb a wall, you likely won't have much success as a streaker at Fenway Park.

Oh, and today is a Woot-off. I guess I know what I'm doing today (cleaning out my garage to make a home for more cheap electronics).

Drink up.

Gorman graduated from puppy class yesterday. We're all so proud.

Oh, and the Brewers won big, too.

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score

And of course, after the game the Brewers continued to commit the most dastardly crime against humanity ever recorded in the book of "Are You Really Still Complaining About This?": the untucking of shirts. Please consult the proper authorities.

Bird Land has a post up on, you guessed it, untucked shirts. He actually explains the reasons, though. Maybe people will read it and learn something. Probably not, though.

According to Tyler Maas at Bugs and Cranks, Ryan Braun wore a different kind of uniform yesterday. Not sure if he kept it tucked in.

A friend of mine was recently working on compiling a list of things that are completely unnecessary to say. For example, he'll walk into a store, pick something up off the shelf and exclaim, "Oh, I wonder if they have these?!" Tom H. has apparently picked up the trend. This morning he's letting us all know that the Brewers, who won game 1 of a series last night, are also hoping to win game 2 to complete the sweep.

He did include this note in today's game story, though: Should CC Sabathia win the NL Cy Young? Steve Aschburner of SI.com makes a case for him.

One other awards note: Fungoes has Ryan Braun 12th in their rankings for NL MVP, behind, among others: two pitchers, an outfielder who's out for the season and an outfielder that no longer plays in the NL.

There have been times in the not-so-distant past when stuff like this would have been the only Brewer news in September: The Brewers announced their contributions to the Arizona Fall League yesterday.

Three members of the West Virginia Power (low-A) were named to the South Atlantic League's post-season All Star Team.

Also, here are some photos from Nashville including (relatively) rare photographs of Mat Gamel in a Sounds uniform.

Book your vacation days now, the postseason schedule has been announced.

On injuries:

J.D. Drew's herniated disc landed him on the DL after all.
Nats OF Austin Kearns has a stress fracture in his foot and will miss 2-4 weeks.
Rangers SP Vicente Padilla is still having issues with his neck and may not pitch Friday.
Marlins RP Renyel Pinto has been placed on the DL with a "sore hamstring" that couldn't possibly be related to this.
Rays C Dioner Navarro had to leave yesterday's game with cramping in his hamstrings and may not play today.
Nick Swisher left last night's game in the 4th inning after fouling a pitch off of his foot.

Again, this is the kind of stuff that used to be the biggest Brewer news in September: MLB Trade Rumors has projected free agent compensation for players likely to be on the move this winter.

Also likely to be on the move: most, if not all of your favorite Florida Marlins, as it seems unlikely the team will come to terms with all 18 arbitration eligible players they'll have this winter.

So let's say you're an MLB general manager and you're looking to upgrade your pitching this offseason. If CC Sabathia is out of your reach, who's the second best free-agent pitcher? Dave Cameron at Fangraphs suggests it's Derek Lowe.

I guess now that J.D. Drew has been DL'ed this move is mildly relevant, but it still feels like a yawner: The Red Sox acquired Mark Kotsay yesterday.

The race to 20 wins got a little closer yesterday: Cliff Lee picked up his 19th win last night, while Brandon Webb took the loss in his first shot at 20. If Cliff Lee reaches 20 wins, and all the signs would suggest he will, will it be the quietest 20 wins ever?

Oh, and do you hate love poems? Would you like them more if they were about Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk? I thought you would.

Drink up.