Tuesday's Frosty Mug: Pinching Your Pennies

Some things to read while exceeding the recommendation.

The quiet, penny-pinching Brewer offseason reached a new low yesterday when Nick Michalski of The Brewers Bar compared the Brewers' offseason spending to his college food budget. It's both sad and funny because (at least at this point) it appears to be true.

One of this offseason's biggest questions was answered over the weekend when Zack Greinke signed a six year deal with the Dodgers. Adam McCalvy has a look at the Brewers as they move on from the Greinke era, and the LA Times has a reminder of one of the reasons we liked Greinke so much: He showed up for his meeting with the Dodgers with no agent and no entourage. The Dodgers, meanwhile, appear to have a professional photoshopper on staff.

Meanwhile, the Brewers remain locked in a staring contest with Ryan Dempster. Tom Haudricourt says never to say never, but he doesn't think the Brewers will be the team to give Dempster a three year deal at his age.

If the Brewers end up deciding not to give a long term deal to a starting pitcher this season, maybe an extension for Carlos Gomez could be in the works? Gomez is arbitration eligible, due for free agency a year from now and hit the tenth longest homer by a Brewer in the 2012 season.

If you haven't yet, please take a moment to vote in this week's Brew Crew Ball Tracking Poll. Voting will remain open through the day today and results will be posted tomorrow.

If you'd like more Brewer coverage today but you're sick of reading, I'll be making my weekly appearance on The Sports Den with Downtown Ollie Burrows on SportsFan100.5 in Wausau at 5:30 today.

Around baseball:

Blue Jays: Hired Pat Hentgen as their new bullpen coach.
Pirates: Re-signed pitcher Jason Grilli to a two year, $6.75 million deal.
Tigers: Signed catcher Brayan Pena to a major league deal and designated pitcher Matt Hoffman for assignment.
Twins: Signed pitcher Kevin Correia to a two year, $10 million deal.

Of course, one of baseball's top stories this week is still the Rays-Royals trade that saw Kansas City put a big divot in its future in exchange for some short term pitching help. Joe Posnanski has thousands of words on why he strongly dislikes the trade, but also why he understands the Royals' decision to pull the trigger.

Today in former Brewers: Most of the humor is pretty immature, but some of the work done by Baseball Card Vandals (including one modification made to a card involving Mark Knudson) is pretty funny. (h/t Big League Stew)

This morning's edition of Today In Brewer History marks the 27th anniversary of the 1985 trade that brought reliever Mark Clear to Milwaukee for infielder Ed Romero. Today also would have been 1959-65 Milwaukee Brave Lee Maye's 78th birthday, and Plunk Everyone notes that his 19 career HBP are the fourth most ever for a player born on December 11.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make a longer banner.

Drink up.