Twitter rumor I just came across:

@MrFantasyExpert: "Mat Gamel to the White Sox talks have intensified.....something could come of this as soon as later on this evening #brewers #whitesox"

Weird source. Not a media member, but the Twitter account came out of three months of dormancy to say the Jackson deal was imminent. So maybe there's a thread of truth to this? 

Next question is, what would we WANT from the White Sox that's worth giving up our 1B for the foreseeable future?

Adam Dunn? Matt Thornton? Will Ohman? Carlos Quentin? Alexei Ramirez? What's realistic, and what do we need?

UPDATE: 

More Tweets from @MrFantasyExpert, who claims to have a src close to the situation, and says Alex Rios and Thornton are the targets. Thanks to SRB for passing them along in the comments.

Centerpiece in the Gamel to White Sox trade is Thornton/Rios,still gathering more in terms of farm players being discussed. WS eating Rios $

Nothing is final quite yet, but the White Sox are expected to eat most of Rios’s remaining $, and Thornton will be a centerpiece.

Still gathering minor league players being discussed from both teams in the Gamel to White Sox trade #whitesox #brewers.

Nothing is final, and with as much money as Rios is owed, I am sure a lot of specifics are being worked out in terms $ eaten by White Sox

From Tom H's Twitter: "I asked Brewers GM Doug Melvin if he was in on Carl Pavano and he evaded the question. Made me feel like he might be interested."

I don't think we're trading Prince. Marcum, our new No. 2 starter, will cost $4-5M in Arb2 (right?). A Weeks extension, if it happens, might bump him from $4.5M to (I'm guessing) $7 or $8M max. 

That would bring the 2011 payroll, based off of Mr. Charlie Marlow's estimates, to around $70M. Melvin is in win-now mode, and our general payroll target is $80M. Assuming we fill all bullpen spots with what we've got already, that would mean there's $10M available for potential FA spending. 

Would it be so bad to just drop that on the first of a 2-year ($20-22m?) deal for Pavano? You're buying high, but you've got the money, and Prince is coming off the books in 2012. I'd almost rather do this than flip Cain + pitching prospects for a No. 3/4 starter. I'd be cautiously excited about a YoGa-Marcum-Stache-Wolf-NarvDog rotation.

(This Star-Tribune blog suggests Pavano could be had for 3/$33M, like what Lilly got from the Dodgers. A 3-year deal scares me; he'll be 37 in 2013.)

Little-known fact: For a couple of years right after he got out of the league, Bill Schroeder was a roadie for Uncle Tupelo. You can still see a lot of the alt-country/indie vibe in Bill. Of the two men on the right -- Jeff Tweedy and the Rock -- you really struggle to tell who's the indie rocker and who's the big-league backstop-turned-announcer. I'd be open for Tweedy subbing in as FSN Wisconsin color man on occasion, although the fact that Brian Anderson doesn't seem to want to be photographed with him could be a problem. B.A. thinks jean jackets in the booth are mad unprofessional, and did not approve of Tweedy's banter about advice he received from his father: "Marry a woman that's a little bit fat. That way, everywhere you grab, you'll get something good."

It's this guy. (And I don't mean Carlos Gomez.)

Not nearly as hot, I must say. But he does have experience in a pennant race. And a now-defunct blog.

(Info from this JSBlog post: Brian Anderson will be the play-by-play man this year, along with analyst Bill Schroeder. Former Brewers first base coach Davey Nelson will provide analysis during Brewers Live before and after the game along with host Craig Coshun and Fox Sports Wisconsin newcomer Telly Hughes.)

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Nedgar, I'm sorry: If my neighbors have a fight, I'm totally going to go outside and watch them. Especially if one of them is acting like a rabid (leaf-eating) grizzly bear.

The best information we have, on the morning after, is that Prince took umbrage with Parra's desire to retreat to the clubhouse after being pulled in the top of the 7th. According to the beat blog, the big fellah yelled, "We stayed out there and watched your sh*t. You can stay out here and watch our sh*t."

Yost would like to sweep this under the rug, but I think it has legs as a slogan. For example, what if we as fans had been able to use it during the Cubs series last week?

Brewers: (Trying to slink into clubhouse quietly after latest arse-kicking)

Brewers fans: We're going to try to salvage the night by playing some horribly long, drunken games of cornhole in the parking lot. We may sink bags at a 5 percent rate. Prince, Manny, etc, we'd appreciate spectators. "We stayed out there and watched your sh*t. You can stay out here and watch our sh*t."

Or what if we were able to use it after a classic Yosting against the Astros?

Ned: (Is saying in postgame press conference that his starting pitcher -- who gave up a deflating late homer -- was "one pitch away," did not look fatigued or appear to be struggling despite being in the midst of an absolutely horrendous inning. Goes on to say it was irrelevant that he had a well-rested bullpen at his disposal, and irrelevant that the home-run hitter already had one homer in the game.)

Fans: Hey, uh, Ned, we're going to need you to watch something before you go home. It's in a port-o-potty, in one of the outer lots.

Ned: Why is the door open to this thing? It smells horrible. And who said that guy could make my dugout face? That's my dugout face!

Fan in port-o-potty: "We stayed out there and watched your sh*t. You can stay out here and watch our sh*t."

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This may be a moronic post -- a product of me missing the first chunk of Thursday's game against the Cards -- but was Prince possibly using someone else's bat during his home-run AB in the 10th?

It looked like kind of a small stick for him, and the number on the handle seemed to say No. 12. That's Carlos Villanueva. Who wouldn't exactly be the first logical candidate for Prince to borrow a bat from, but you never know.

If this is way off-base, just ignore me. If this is on-point, could Ryan Braun possibly start using Parra's bats instead?

A trade of at least one of our surplus arms -- Capuano, Bush, Vargas or Parra -- is inevitable before Opening Day. So there are two questions: Which guy (or guys) goes, and what do we get in return?

Here's how I imagine this playing out:

1. We don't trade Parra. There's no glaring need on this team right now (unless someone's offering an All-Star catcher or something) to justify ditching our No. 1 minor-league pitching prospect, and a lefty at that. He gets sent to AAA and is called up if one of our rotation guys/long relievers gets hurt.
2. We don't trade Capuano, for the sole reason that a small-market team can't afford to sell low on a starting lefty with a decent history of success. His stock is probably at its nadir.
3. We try -- HARD -- to shop Vargas, then realize we aren't going to get much in return, because teams know he's our most expendable part, and he's not nearly as good as his W-L record suggested. We pull back and put him in middle relief.
4. Capuano looks good enough in Spring Training that he gets slotted as the No. 5 starter. Which opens the door for a questionable Bush trade, even though he's one of our most dependable righties. We find a team in desperate need of a 4 or 5 starter, and swap Bush for a decent AA arm who will either:

have a shot at jumping into the rotation once Sheets is gone to Free Agency or the Blister Ward

have a shot at taking over for one of our one-year-contract relievers in a 7th or 8th inning role

SO ... I guess my hope is that we can convert some of this current surplus into our next wave of arms. I think getting some future bullpen help -- given that we're thinking so short-term in that area, and aren't very deep there in the minors -- is the best option. Thoughts, anyone?

Strange that, coming into Xmas time, it seemed like the only flexible spots were LF and Braun. But have the Brew actually been considering moving Bill Hall to 3B for a while? The three OFs we've been linked to, aside from the one-sided begging that Luis Gonzalez's agent did, are:

Kenny Lofton

David DeJesus (more of a rumor)

Mike Cameron

All CFs. And when quoted about Lofton's intended (or desired?) position in a JSBlog this week, Melvin said, "That's where we're not sure," and added that it was up for discussion with Yost.

I really wouldn't mind a Braun-Lofton-Hart OF and a Hall-JJ-Rickie-Prince infield. I'd actually love it. But I guess the big Qs are,

How much, if at all, would this piss off Bill Hall? The party line was always that asking him to move again would be "too much."

How soon do you need to let Braun and Hall know this is happening? Or is the Hammer clandestinely taking fly balls somewhere already, and Billy fielding grounders?