Guess who's back? No, not Kyle, he'll be back next week. In the meantime, you'll have to put up with me doing a Mug again. It's been a long winter filled with irritated tweets about snow, basketball, and bad amateur fiction for me.
Rob Neyer's Question of the Day today is about the Brewers: Will Greinke and Marcum be enough to make them contenders? His answer is yes, but it's a bit more detailed than that.
In Adam McCalvy's most recent Brewers notebook, he updates us on Mark DiFelice's first appearance against major league hitters since 2009, as well as Jonathan Lucroy's injury.
Tom Haudricourt also brings us an injury update, this about the various relievers with minor issues.
Yesterday's game was more interesting on what happened on the Cubs end of things. Carlos Silva and Aramis Ramirez had a wee fight in the dugout. There's been a lot of frustration over fielding mistakes down over Cubs way and yesterday it boiled over.
The spring training reporters at the JS are doing mildly interesting work. Today, get to know Stan Kyles and Maryvale groundskeeper Jon Naber and learn fielding from Craig Counsell in this video.
Team preview time: Jack Moore at FanGraphs brings us the statistical approach, while Babes Love Baseball describes the team in haiku.
Which pitchers induce the most popups? According to Otis Anderson's analysis, Takashi Saito is ninth over the past five seasons.
Minor league note: For those of you in the Appleton area, the Timber Rattlers are having a rummage sale of memorabilia this Saturday. Tickets are also going on sale.
Around the majors:
Angels manager Mike Scioscia wants to get his players to know each other during spring training, so he's invented some great icebreaking exercises. The managers who have served under him, like Bud Black and Ron Roenicke, are inspired by this.
Actual spring training transaction news, as the Indians traded P Aaron Laffey to the Mariners for minor league IF Matt Lawson and cash.
Today's former Brewers news:
Rob Neyer thinks that Lorenzo Cain should be given a shot to start in the Royals outfield this season, but he has some fierce competition there. Wait, it's just Melky Cabrera, sorry.
Tyler Maas remembers Jody Gerut on the occasion of his retirement.
Camden Chat presents an interview transcript with Mac from Sunny J.J. Hardy. He discusses his amazing resemblance, as well as table tennis.
Today in Brewer birthdays:
2009 Brewer Jorge Julio is 32.
1992 Brewer Neal Heaton is 51.