Brewers Pitchers And Catchers Report: Tuesday's Frosty Mug

Some things to read while giving the wrong guy a ride.

It's been a long winter, but good morning and welcome to the first day of spring. Pitchers, catchers and media are reporting to Maryvale this morning for the first official day of spring training, which largely involves physicals and whatnot before the first official workout tomorrow.

The first official workout tomorrow will also be the first full day for this season's batch of Arizona State students covering spring training for the Journal Sentinel. They've already got their JS blog and their Twitter feed ready.

You've waited all winter, now it's time for 2013's first batch of spring training stories!

• Adam McCalvy has a story about this spring's likely top stories.
• J.P. Breen of Disciples of Uecker has four things to watch this spring.
• I guess "fashion show" may also be on the agenda for the first day of camp: Mike Vassallo has photos of Ed Sedar wearing the new retro BP cap, while Marco Estrada models the current logo version.

Jim Henderson is one of several Brewers in major league camp for the first time in 2013. Bob Elliott of the Canadian Baseball Network has a reminder of Henderson's winding road to the big leagues. (h/t Adam McCalvy)

Mike Fiers is in his second big league camp, but his first as a possible member of the Opening Day rotation. Tom Haudricourt has a profile of one of 2012's breakout performers.

Major league camp is nothing new for Yovani Gallardo, of course, as he enters his seventh MLB season. Dave Radcliffe of Yahoo is predicting Gallardo's second career All Star appearance in 2013.

The Brewers haven't done much this winter, but at least they're not part of these lists: There aren't any Brewers present on Jonah Keri of Grantland's look of the worst contracts in baseball or Dave Cameron of FanGraphs' list of the winter's ten worst transactions. Their only appearance in Jayson Stark of ESPN's offseason review was two of the three spots on his list of most unlikely players on spring rosters (Kelvim Escobar and Bobby Crosby).

Meanwhile, three former Brewers will be spending the spring in someone else's camp. Prospective BCB contributor Fred Hofstetter considered the cases of Kameron Loe, Jose Veras and Travis Ishikawa yesterday in his tryout post.

Moving back to players who are still on the roster, tdgbp stopped by the FanPosts section with a reminder of how the players currently on the 40-man roster were originally acquired. Meanwhile, Ron Roenicke Stole My Baseball has a look at the Brewers' 2013 PECOTA projections.

It's worth noting that not everyone is down on the 2013 Brewers: Dan Plesac has them third on his list of teams that may surprise in 2013, behind the Royals and Mariners.

In the minors:

• Reviewing the Brew has an interview with 2012 second round pick Tyrone Taylor.
• Taylor is also on Twitter.
  

Finally, time is running out this morning to get friend of the site Kevin Kimmes selected to the MLB Fan Cave. Go vote for him now if you haven't already. If you have voted already, go vote again.

Around baseball:

Angels: Reliever Ryan Madson has suffered a setback in his recovery from Tommy John surgery and may not be ready for Opening Day.
Athletics: Signed reliever Hideki Okajima to a minor league deal.
Indians: Signed outfielder Michael Bourn to a four-year, $48 million deal.
Mets: Pitcher Jenrry Mejia is late to spring training due to visa issues.
Nationals: Signed reliever Will Ohman to a minor league deal.
Reds: Avoided arbitration with outfielder Shin-Soo Choo (one year, $7.375 million) and signed pitcher Clay Hensley to a minor league deal.
Rockies: Avoided arbitration with outfielder Dexter Fowler (two years, $11.6 million).

The Bourn signing showcases a pretty interesting disparity created by baseball's collective bargaining agreement. The Mets, who were also interested in Bourn, would have had to give up the #11 pick in the 2013 draft (and the accompanying money in their bonus pool) to sign him. The Indians, who had a protected first round pick and had already lost their second round pick for signing Nick Swisher, will only lose the #71 pick.

Elsewhere in transaction notes, yesterday's arbitration settlements mean baseball only has four pending cases remaining. Since this process was implemented we've never had a year where less than three players went to hearings.

Here's my favorite spring training story from today: You've gotta get up pretty early to beat Marlins manager Mike Redmond to the ballpark. He showed up at 5 am Monday to win a contest no one else appeared to know they were having.

Today in former Brewers:

• Baseball Card Vandals had some fun with a 1987 Topps Bryan Clutterbuck card.
• Jason Kendall, Fernando Vina, Don Money and Sal Bando join current Brewer Rickie Weeks on Plunk Everyone's list of career HBP leaders by reigning pope.
  

Today in baseball economics: The Tigers quietly raised prices on every single game ticket at Comerica Park for 2013, some as much as 280%.

If you're between the ages of 18-23 or have previous professional baseball experience and you'd like to play for the Tigers, by the way, they're holding open tryouts in Florida on March 4.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a crisis to resolve.

Drink up.