What We Learned: Football season is over; welcome back to baseball world

Brewers News & Notes

• The countdown to Opening Day is at 55 days. Today's post looks at Victor Roache and the outfield depth situation. Also, looking back at posts from the weekend, they focused on #58 Ariel Pena, #57 Chase Anderson, and the 56 runs Lucroy scored in 2015.
• The ZiPS projections are out for the 2016 season. Kyle went through the projections and was a little encouraged by what he saw.
• Taking a look at the worst seasons in Brewers history, Kyle looks back at the 1995 Brewers season.
• The Brewers have an open broadcaster position to fill, and plenty of applicants who want to fill it. However, Kyle has an out-of-the-box suggestion: bring in Brewers pitcher Tim Dillard to fill the role. (Note: Tim already decided he wasn't interested in being a broadcaster yet.)
• Have any questions you want answers to? Derek is starting back up the mailbag this week, and is taking questions now for Friday's edition.
• Playing at Miller Park, the Brewers have to account for the park factors, but can't build a team around it. Seth Victor of BP Milwaukee discusses how the Brewers adapt to playing half of their games at Miller Park.
• The Brewers have a surplus of outfielders right now, and have to figure out how to play Khris Davis and Domingo Santana at the same time. Nicholas Zettel of Disciples of Uecker looks at the Brewers options for the outfield duo.
• Continuing in their Brewers By the Jersey Numbers series, The Brewer Nation blog looked at #58 Ariel Pena and #57 Chase Anderson.
• While the Super Bowl was going on, the Brewers released their first ad for the 2016 Brewers season. Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel spoke with manager Craig Counsell, who was the subject of this first ad.
• Also on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel site, Haudricourt spoke with recently acquired infielder Aaron Hill, who is looking forward to helping the Brewers rebuild in 2016.
• Tom Haudricourt also reports that seven more Brewers on the 40-man roster signed contracts for the 2016 season.
• This year's Arctic Tailgate is scheduled for Saturday, February 27. Cait Covers the Bases has the details on this year's event.

Minor League Update

• In the BCB Community Top Prospects vote, Josh Hader took the #5 spot in the rankings, and Gilbert Lara has the lead in the vote for the #6 spot.
• Over on Miller Park Prospects, Marcus Young and their writers compiled a top 40 prospect list for the Brewers organization.
• Chris Mehring of TimberRattlers.com takes a look at the Brewers current top 30 prospects on MLB.com and compares it to an archived list from 2014, noting how the list as changed over the past year.

Around Baseball

• On Sunday, the Super Bowl was played, and it featured one player who had played in the minor leagues. Travis looked at the short professional baseball career of Shaq Thompson.
• MLB is discussing a rule change for next season about slides into second base. The hope is to prevent catastrophic leg injuries from happening due to reckless slides.
• Revenue sharing was touted as a way for the small-market teams to be able to compete with the big-market teams. However, Jack Moore of BP Milwaukee argues that instead of giving teams a reason to compete, it incentivizes losing until a chance to win comes together.
• Meanwhile, another system that was created to protect teams has resulted in several good free agents not being able to find a contract for the 2016 season. Matt Goldman of MLB Daily Dish talks about how the qualifying offer system is making it much harder to get teams to pursue free agents.
• While early draft picks and bigger spending pools for the draft may help losing teams rebuild, it's not going to help an organization rebuild by itself. David Schoenfield of ESPN SweetSpot argues that the reason the Cubs and Astros are successful now is not because they tanked for several years.
• The Blue Jays avoided arbitration with third baseman Josh Donaldson and signed him to a two-year, $29 million contract. They also lost their arbitration case against pitcher Jesse Chavez, who will earn a $4 million salary in 2016. In addition, they signed pitcher Gavin Floyd to a one-year, $1 million contract. Finally, they signed RHP David Aardsma to a minor-league contract.
• The Cubs avoided arbitration with pitcher Jake Arrieta and signed him to a one-year, $10.7 million contract.
• The Diamondbacks signed reliever Tyler Clippard to a two-year, $12.25 million contract and designated LHP Will Locante for assignment. They also avoided arbitration with outfielder A.J. Pollock and signed him to a two-year, $10.25 contract.
• The Giants signed third baseman Conor Gillaspie to a minor-league contract.
• The Indians signed reliever Craig Stammen to a minor-league contract.
• The Orioles avoided arbitration with closer Zach Britton and signed him to a one-year, $6.75 million contract.
• The Padres signed outfielder Skip Schumaker to a minor-league contract.
• The Reds lost their arbitration case against reliever J.J. Hoover, who will earn a salary of $1.4 million in 2016.
• The Mets signed outfielder Roger Bernadina to a minor-league contract.
• The Tigers avoided arbitration with outfielder J.D. Martinez and signed him to a two-year, $18.5 million contract.