Some things to read while ordering off the secret menu.
We're still 97 days away from pitchers and catchers reporting to Maryvale, but Milwaukee is going to be the center of the baseball universe for a few days this week: The annual GM and owners' meetings are being held at the Pfister Hotel between now and Thursday.
It's unlikely, however, that anything will be resolved this week regarding Prince Fielder. Tom Haudricourt says Doug Melvin may meet with Scott Boras to talk, but is unlikely to make an offer at this point. Haudricourt also notes what we've said several times previously: The Brewers simply don't have the payroll flexibility at this point to make a Fielder deal work without significant changes elsewhere.
Here are today's other Fielder notes:
- The Angels, who last week said they weren't uninterested in Fielder, have since apparently changed their minds.
- Lookout Landing has another consideration of Fielder and the Mariners.
- After spending much of a week worrying about Wilson Ramos, Nats Enquirer is happy to be back to thinking about Fielder.
Elsewhere in free agency: Adam McCalvy answered several offseason questions in his inbox at The Official Site over the weekend. When asked about Jose Reyes he said it's hard to believe the Brewers could make the money work, but he also won't rule it out.
Nyjer Morgan isn't likely to win any awards this week, but he does have a shot at this: Voters at NotGraphs currently have him in second place in the balloting to assign their "Interrobang" nickname. He trails Mike Stanton by 3%.
If Morgan sticks around for a while, he might crack this list: UZR defensive numbers have now been around for a decade, and Jim Breen of Bernie's Crew has a look at the Brewers' leaders in the metric over that time.
Dale Sveum's offseason adventure will continue this week, as he's expected to have his second interview with the Red Sox while they're in town. I remain surprised that he's this strong of a candidate, but at this point it looks like he's got a pretty good shot at getting the job.
In the minors:
- The Arizona Fall League is off on Sundays, but Sergio Miranda went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles in Ponce's 5-4 win over Mayaguez in Puerto Rican play yesterday. You can read about that and more in today's Winter League Notes.
- Logan Schafer has crept onto the bottom of the leaderboard in Carson Cistulli's "SCOUT" stat for AFL hitters. It measures how well a hitter outperforms his peers in walks, strikeouts and home runs.
- Seedlings to Stars named Scooter Gennett to their Florida State League postseason All Star team.
- Baseball Intellect has scouting video of Wily Peralta, but it's subscriber-only.
If you weren't around this weekend you missed a fair amount of good stuff here: On Saturday Noah had a first look at some of the Brewers' options to improve their bullpen, and yesterday Jon Baas of Milwaukee Brewers Replay stopped by to share the results from the first month of his efforts to replay the entire 2011 season via Baseball Mogul. You can follow Jon's work on Facebook, if you don't already.
On Friday we continued our player-by-player look at the 2011 season with this profile of Francisco Rodriguez. K-Rod is the 14th Brewer we've profiled, and I'll have our 15th later today.
Elsewhere in self promotion, if you're interested there's still time to help us choose a book to read in our new BCB Book Club. I think we have enough interest to make this project worth doing, so we'll probably pick a book tomorrow, give people some time to acquire it and get started next week.
Around baseball:
Astros: Signed outfielder Brad Snyder and infielder Joe Thurston to minor league deals.
Cardinals: Hired Mike Matheny to be their new manager. (FanShot)
Diamondbacks: Signed second baseman Aaron Hill to a two year, $10 million deal. (h/t @TylerLockman)
Mariners: Signed pitchers Matt Fox and Jeff Marquez to minor league deals.
Phillies: Signed reliever Jonathan Papelbon to a four year, $50 million contract with a vesting option for 2016.
Twins: Signed infielder Jamey Carroll to a two year, $7 million deal.
There's a strong possibility this will be the biggest story to come out of this week's GM and owners meetings: Owners are expected to vote on Thursday to approve Jim Crane as the Astros' new owner, and an official announcement of the team's move to the AL in 2013 could be soon to follow.
- Jacob Peterson of Beyond the Box Score listed Tony Graffanino as the most valuable non-catcher part time player of all time.
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Brewers in 11 has made an all-time Brewer team based on the franchise's best single-season performances.
I guess this is kind of like a former Brewer: Seamheads has a story on the goat that served as a mascot for the American Association Brewers in the early 1900's. (h/t @SABR)
The Miami Marlins unveiled their new logo and uniforms over the weekend, and while doing so they showed a highlight video from previous seasons. Apparently pickings were pretty slim from the 1998 campaign, because Mark Kotsay's 20 outfield assists were enough for him to make the cut.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to return a dog.
Drink up.