Friday's Frosty Mug: Finally Home Again

Some things to read while things change.

After 45 days of camp in Arizona the Brewers packed up and headed back to Milwaukee yesterday, where they'll open the 2013 regular season on Monday. They closed out Cactus League play with a 6-2 win over the Rockies, and morineko has the recap.

The big story from yesterday's game was the Brewer debut of Kyle Lohse, who pitched 3.2 innings and allowed a run on four hits (including three doubles), walking none and striking out two. After the game Ron Roenicke declared him "major league ready" to open the season, and he's now penciled in for a start in the Diamondbacks series.

Other notes from camp:

• The Brewers have yet to make their final Opening Day roster decisions, but Ron Roenicke said he's leaning towards keeping 13 pitchers to open the year.
• ASU student Jason Galvin of the Journal Sentinel and his fellow ASU students shared a goodbye message and their favorite spring moments. Come for the fun, stay for Galvin pulling the race card on Corey Hart.

The Brewers unofficially open their home schedule in Milwaukee tonight with the first of a pair of exhibition games against the White Sox. Wily Peralta takes on Hector Santiago in the opener, which you can see on FS Wisconsin or hear on WTMJ.

It looks like Peralta will open the season in the rotation, and could be poised for a big year. Brandon Berg of the Chippewa Herald has him on a list of five Brewers that could have breakout seasons in 2013.

Jean Segura had two hits yesterday, scored twice and finished the spring with a .382 batting average. His development is the lone reason for optimism in Kevin Kimmes of Cream City Cables or The Book of Gorman's preview of Brewer shortstops in 2013. Elsewhere in positional previews, Nathan has a look at Brewer first basemen at CCC.

In the minors:

• We'll probably see full rosters announced for most teams in the coming days, but you can pencil one name onto the roster for the 2013 Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. 2012 second round pick Tyrone Taylor, who just turned 19 in January, announced he's on the squad.
• Scooter Gennett is back in minor league camp but wore #3 for the Brewers this spring, which was enough to earn him an entry in The Brewer Nation's "Brewers By the (Jersey) Numbers" series.
• Rattler Radio has the latest video update from the final preparations for the newly renovated Fox Cities Stadium.
• The Brevard County Manatees were working on re-covering their elevators yesterday and found an old Expos logo.

Today in predictions, power rankings and whatnot:

• Ken Rosenthal and Jon Morosi of Fox Sports each have the Brewers finishing third in the NL Central, with Morosi saying "this feels like an 81-81 team."
• The Baseball Prospectus consensus predictions have the Brewers finishing in fourth place, just slightly behind the Pirates. Follow that link for a full list of their individual picks.
• The team at PocketDoppler.com have the Brewers finishing between 77-82 wins and in either third or fourth.
• Old Time Family Baseball has the Brewers winning 77 games and finishing fourth.
• Jordan Bastian of MLB.com has them fourth too.
• So does The Giants Baseball Blog.
• akschaaf of Ron Roenicke Stole My Baseball has an homage to every trolling season preview you've seen or avoided.

Piling on, Dave Radcliffe of Yahoo has a list of reasons why the Brewers won't win the Central.

The 2013 Brewers may not be projected to be very good on the field, but at least this is pretty cool: Fox6Now has a picture of a depiction of Bernie Brewer and the Racing Sausages made out of soda 12 packs at a local Pick 'N Save.

At least no Brewers showed up on James Anderson of Disciples of Uecker's list of the five worst contracts in the NL Central.

Around baseball:

Braves: Reliever Jonny Venters is going to open the season on the DL with elbow discomfort.
Giants: Extended manager Bruce Bochy and general manager Brian Sabean's contracts through 2016 and re-signed reliever Ramon Ramirez to a minor league deal.
Marlins: Signed catcher Miguel Olivo.
Mets: Johan Santana has reinjured his shoulder and may miss the 2013 season.
Orioles: Pitcher Chris Tillman is going to open the season on the DL with abdominal soreness.
Rangers: Released infielder/outfielder Brandon Snyder.
Red Sox: Placed shortstop Stephen Drew on the 7-day DL with a concussion.
Rockies: Signed pitcher Aaron Cook to a minor league deal and designated catcher Ramon Hernandez for assignment.
Yankees: Released infielder/outfielder Juan Rivera.

The Tillman transaction mentioned above reflects a pretty interesting manipulation of baseball's roster rules. By putting their fifth starter on the DL retroactive to March 22, the Orioles can open the season with an extra roster spot and Tillman will be eligible to return by the time they need him to pitch.

Today in former Brewers:

• Manny Parra is on the roster bubble in Reds camp after a final outing where he (stop me if you've heard this one) got two outs in the fifth inning, then allowed five straight hits and three runs.
• High Heat Stats notes that, by game score at least, Ben Sheets in 2007 had the best Opening Day performance by a pitcher in franchise history.
  

If you follow a lot of beat writers on Twitter, you'll probably hear complaints about this all season. Adam McCalvy retweeted a photo from the Angels' new press box in the right field corner, which doesn't exactly have the typical media view of the field.

Today's big sabermetric note may be long overdue: FanGraphs and Baseball Reference have worked out an agreement to eliminate some of the differences between the ways they calculate wins above replacement, perhaps eliminating the need to distinguish between rWAR and fWAR.

This morning's edition of Today In Brewer History marks longtime Brewer reliever and coach Bill Castro's 61st birthday. Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times notes that it's also been 5000 days since Jim Abbott's final major league appearance as a Brewer. Today is also 1998 and 2002 Brewer Alex Ochoa's 41st birthday, and Plunk Everyone notes that his 19 career HBP are the fifth most ever for a player born on March 29.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've been spotted.

Drink up.