Merry Christmas Brewers Fans

Brewers sign Jeff Suppan to a 4-year deal. That's all I got.




**EDIT**
I thought I'd lighten the mood just a little bit around here. Merry Christmas.

Still looking for a Christmas present for that special somebody?

Here's one idea.

Brewers: The Case of Ole Widehead

Today is the last day to tender contracts to arbitration eligable players. The question for the Brewers right now is whether to tender arbitration to Kevin Mench, who will probably make about $3.5M after arbitration. If the Brewers make an offer, they're stuck with Mench. If they don't, Mench is cut loose, and the Brewers save themselves the salary. In light of Mench trade rumours, what should the Brewers do?

Also, there may be some really interesting names hitting the free agent market today, like Brad Wilkerson. Should the Brewers make a move on some of other teams' refugees today? This is worth watching and the Brewers have to do something with at least Mench.

This shall be the new Brewers venting thread for the next couple weeks.

A gem from my favorite website sportswriter this side of John Donovan

Buster Olney give us this masterpiece on why the Gil Meche signing was a good one for the Royals. Yes, I understand this is subscriber content, Buster. Deal with it. Maybe if you didn't write constant dogshit I wouldn't be forced to post it elsewhere.

"The Soviet Union abandons Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan leaves office, replaced by George H.W. Bush. There is a massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Michelle Wie is born. There is an earthquake at the World Series.

The year is 1989, which is the last time that the Kansas City Royals achieved 90 victories in any season, finishing with 92. The last time they appeared in any playoff game was on Oct. 27, 1985. Remember, in the deepest recesses of our memories, how 21-year-old Bret Saberhagen pitched a shutout and mugged for the cameras?

The Royals had almost nothing but big-picture failure since then, some small successes but very little progress. They've developed some nice players over the years, Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran among them, only to trade them as they moved closer to free agency. There was no chance the Royals were going to retain either player, and not only because of their unwillingness to spend the dollars necessary. The players wouldn't have stayed, because the Royals' culture has been a culture of defeat. If you're a veteran star and you want to win, well, then you go someplace other than Kansas City.

Other mid-market and small-market teams can lure frontline veterans; Oakland can sign Mike Piazza and Frank Thomas, the Twins can land Kenny Rogers, the Indians once signed Kevin Millwood. But the Royals have struggled for respect among players.

This is part of what Kansas City general manager Dayton Moore is trying to buy as he agrees to a $55 million deal for Gil Meche. Oh, sure, he's overpaying for a high-ceiling talent who really hasn't accomplished that much yet. Meche has never pitched 200 innings in a season, has won more than 11 games once, and has had more arm surgeries than seasons with an ERA under 4.00.

But Moore also is buying some attention from prospective free agents. The Royals went toe-to-toe with the big boys and won, outbidding the Chicago Cubs for Meche, outbidding the Boston Red Sox for Octavio Dotel.

Meche and Dotel are not the perfect guys with whom you'd like to make this kind of statement. Given Meche's injury history, it's very possible that he's going to break down during the course of this contract. Dotel may not be physically able to be as dominant as he once was, and even when he was completely healthy, his problems against left-handed hitters made him a mediocre closer, at best.

But these are bricks being laid down by Moore. Maybe Meche wins 12 games, and Dotel racks up 30 saves, and maybe the Royals surprise us and win 72 games in the toughest division in baseball next year. Maybe Alex Gordon has a big rookie season, which is hardly a stretch, and Mark Teahen shifts to left field and continues to hit, and the Royals are suddenly a spoiler nobody wants to play. Maybe Zack Greinke comes back. We might start taking the Royals a little more seriously for 2008, for 2009.

And, perhaps, so will the prospective free agents. Perhaps the rising stars on the team will take the Royals more seriously. Maybe Gordon or Teahen decide that they like playing in Kansas City, and they sign long-term deals. Maybe they stick around long enough for Moore's scouts to develop some pitching talent. Maybe Luke Hochevar turns into something special.

We can't fool ourselves, either; there's a very good chance that this won't work. Meche might be a disaster, more sand than brick for Moore's foundation. Hochevar might get hurt, Teahen and Gordon might leave town, as Beltran and Damon did before them. The Royals have tried to spend before, and it didn't work -- they paid big money for David Cone and wound up trading him, and the high-salary signing of Mike Sweeney really hasn't paid off.

But they can't win if they don't try, and mostly over the last two decades, they haven't tried, haven't spent the kind of money they needed to spend to give themselves a chance. They've got the money now, in this lucrative era for baseball, and the Royals' options are to spend it or keep it. Kansas City has chosen to spend its money. The Royals have chosen to try.

Gil Meche, $55 million? A little crazy. OK, maybe more than a little crazy.

But at least they're not consigning themselves to a future of failure. They're taking a shot, and it's hard to fault them for doing that."

It's the last line that really gets to me. He goes through all of these hypotheticals, as though, if the stars align perfectly, the Royals could become the spoiler nobody wants to play. This basically describes a 70 win team, which is the best case scenario. Then . . . they're taking a shot, and it's hard to fault them for doing that? The first thing this reminded me of was watching Rickie Weeks get thrown out at home for about the 84th time last year and Schroeder saying "welp, you can't fault him for being aggresive on the basepaths". No, fuck that. There's no need to be stupid just for the sake of demonstrating aggressiveness, you clowns. I don't really mean to copy the FJM structure, but these types of things frustrate me.

Brewers Hate-Off (1998-2006) The Final Countdown

Bud $elig vs. Jeffrey Hammonds

Official Winter Meetings Thread

I don't actually have anything substantive to say right now (do I ever?), but with the amount of activity we've seen out of Milwaukee during meetings past, we need one standardized place to discuss. Feel free to mention other deals as well.