Winter Warm-Up tidbits

The Brewers’ brass held their “Winter Warm-Up” open house Tuesday evening, which also consisted of a fan chat (for fans that weren’t season ticket holders), and also had comments from the Brewers’ new left fielder, Ryan Braun. In a nutshell:

• Ryan Braun seems to be more than okay with the move. As I posted in the Comments area, “why not?” The move does take off the pressure of him having to improve defensively at third base, and basically puts him back at zero for establishing whether or not he can be a decent left fielder defensively…in other words, if he does a great job in left field, both he and his bosses look like heroes; if not, well, hey, everyone can argue, “well, what did you expect in the first year moving and infielder to the outfield?”
• The rotation will be decided in spring training…and Brewers’ GM Doug Melvin confirmed that he has no pending deals in the works to move any of the extra starters.
• The back-up catcher is still up for grabs between Eric Munson, Mike Rivera, and Wisconsin native Vinny Rotino.
• No one asked about the batting order…or they avoided the question. No matter–I’m sure Yost would have indicated that it will be determined based on how everyone does in Maryvale.
• They’ve re-named the “.300 Club”–it is now “The Metavante Club.” Pretty sure “metavante” is not a baseball term, so it must be a corporate sponsor.
• 150 games will be on FSN North this year, up from 115 in 2006. Good news for us Brewers’ fans in Madison (bad news for my wife, who likes watching the Brewers…just not as much as I do).
• Drew Anderson was designated for assignment to make room for Mike Cameron.

So…other than the expected Drew Anderson cut, everything else was pretty much old news. This “fan fest” of sorts was to reward season ticket holders and the media with the chance to mingle with the Brewers’ brass and a few players. FSN North broadcasted the event (and I was able to catch a few minutes), and it was pretty much a PR event to get fans even more interested in the upcoming season. With another 7″ of snow forecasted later this week–plus some sort of big football game on Sunday–this bit o’ Brewers was a nice midweek break.