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Hopefully Mike Rivera will end up as a backup with a team with a catcher willing to rest every fifth day.

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This weekend's big news is related to the non-tender deadline. As seen in this FanShot, Mark DiFelice, Seth McClung and Mike Rivera were not tendered contracts by the Brewers. Adam McCalvy's article implies that the team was crowded with options for the bullpen and behind the plate and McClung and Rivera were squeezed out. DiFelice may later be signed to a minor league contract in order to rehab with the team, but this hasn't happened yet.

Tom Haudricourt spoke with McClung about the situation. He also notes that the Brewers have a tentative agreement to bring back Craig Counsell for 2010.

Matthew Pouliot believes that the Brewers should have non-tendered Jody Gerut and David Bush in order to save the team money that could go towards a better starting pitcher.

Our general non-tendered players open thread is here; there are loads of players set adrift for various reasons. The helpful bloggers at MLB Trade Rumors have compiled a big list of players. Circling the Bases has another list, pointing out injured players. One of the non-injured non-tenders happens to be Gabe Gross, just in case the Brewers may need yet another 4th outfielder to add to the amazing collection of them that's being built up this offseason. The 40-man will probably be at 40 after Counsell and Vargas sign, however.

The Brewers made a stealth minor league signing when we weren't looking, per Baseball America's weekly minor league transactions; it's A.J. Murray, a left-handed pitcher who has spent his entire career in the Rangers organization. He has major league experience and has been a starter before but he spent 2009 as a reliever. He missed all of 2004 and 2006 with shoulder injuries.

Around the Brewers blogosphere:

• View from Bernie's Chalet thinks the Brewers have more work to do after the Winter Meetings, especially in regards to the starting pitching.
• A Girl's View of the Brewers is happy with the Winter Meetings pitching moves but believes the Brewers need to upgrade the fourth outfielder position.
• Lange at Wisconsin Sports Tap will be missing McClung, remembering the 2008 playoff run.

Kevin Correia, constant object of our delight and speculation, re-signed with the Padres on a one-year contract. Doug Melvin asked the Padres about trading for him but they decided to keep him.

If there's one thing in which the Brewers players in winter ball are exceptionally skilled, it's being hit by pitches. Carlos Gomez, Brendan Katin and Adam Heether look like worthy successors to Jason Kendall if their winter performance is any indication.

Speaking of Kendall, Joe Posnanski sees his signing as just one of the invariably bad moves the Royals could have made with the catcher position for 2010.

Don't forget to vote for the BCB all-decade team's center fielder before 4PM today.

I don't have a baseball book of the week this week, as I haven't read any baseball books since my last Mug. I did pick up a copy of Bill James' The Baseball Book 1990. The 1990 Draft Adviser section is a definite precursor to all the snarky comments in the Baseball Prospectus books. The only comment relevant to current players is the one about John Smoltz: "There is every likelihood that Smoltz will win 200 games in the major leagues." Well, that was right on. If you're more interested in current baseball, Keith Olbermann has an advance review of Dirk Hayhurst's new book (release date March 2010.)

Today in Brewers history, back in 1980, they acquired Rollie Fingers, Ted Simmons, and Pete Vuckovich in a trade with the Cardinals.

Happy birthday to Gorman Thomas, who turned 59 on the 12th.

You may want to put down your owls before reading this post....

As you've probably figured out, I'm the third and final weekend editor to make a debut post here on BCB. You may know me from my many comments and parenthetical remarks. My weekend mugs are tea, preferably lychee-flavored, to keep me awake while I finish this post full o' links.

The Arizona Fall League season is over and the Peoria Javelinas are its champion. They defeated the Phoenix Dirt Dogs 5-4 on Saturday. Jonathan Lucroy went 1 for 4 with a single and run scored and Zach Braddock struck out 3 in one inning of work. Mark Rogers, who did not appear in the game, is satisfied with his AFL experiences.

Extra Bases offered its readers a challenge: create your own team of free agents. Their contest is over, but it's still a good puzzle. Better yet, try to pick what sort of team Doug Melvin would create out of the pool of free agents.

Roy Halladay doesn't want to sign with Toronto. He probably doesn't want to sign with the Brewers, either. It looks like another year of largely irrelevant Halladay madness in the media.

This weekend's (sort of) notable transactional excitement:

Diamondbacks: Add Cole Gillespie (and others) to the 40-man roster.
Pirates: Claim pitcher Chris Jakubauskas on waivers, designate Jeff Karstens for assignment. No word if Dave Kerwin is behind the move.
Reds: Laynce Nix has elected free agency.
Royals: Pitchers Doug Waechter and Devon Lowery have refused assignment and become free agents.
The non-notable 40-man additions before the deadline are over at Baseball America's Prospect Blog.

It's been a slow weekend for Brewers news. If you're not inclined towards football, you can go read a book. My baseball reading for this week was Minnesotans in Baseball, a published version of the Minnesota SABR chapter's work on the Biography Project. There's a fairly large section in there about Paul Molitor. At least in nonfiction one doesn't need to worry about characters named for airplane parts.

The Arizona Fall League championship game is today. For most of us, it will be your last chance to see professional baseball on TV until spring training. The Phoenix Desert Dogs are playing the Peoria Javelinas at 1:30 Central. It's on MLB Network. The Javelinas, as we know, contain Brewers prospects and they (excepting Zach Braddock) have a chance of appearing in this game.

If you can't watch the game, you can at least read about the Brewers prospects.

Hidden inside this game preview was a mention of the deliberations behind this year's roster expansion.

Meanwhile, Macha expects to have "the big talk" in the next day or two with Brewers general manager Doug Melvin regarding which players currently in the Minors will be joining the club on Sept. 1.

"He mentioned that we need to sit down and figure out who will be called up," Macha said. "Last year, a lot of people got called up and some didn't get used. And he's leaning towards not having that happen again. I think that will be a Tuesday conversation."

The situation of last year and this year are reversed. Last year, it was Nashville that had no chance of making the playoffs. Even so, the Brewers chose to call up mostly position players. After Sheets was injured and the team was forced to run Bush, Sabathia and McClung out on short rest for the last weeks of 2008, some more pitchers could have come in handy. DiFelice, Dillard, and Stetter got plenty of work in during September (and waiver claim Coffey also was quite useful.)

This year's Brewers team doesn't seem to have many problems with the bat. It's the pitching that's lacking. Which minor league players do the readers here think would be most helpful, playoff run or no (seriously, no) for the 2009 Brewers this September?

I was thinking about the proposed home/away pitching platoon involving Seth McClung and Dave Bush. The Bush splits were already well-accounted for by dixieflatline in his post. I don't have the same nifty data analysis tools or the knowledge to work up McClung's away splits in the same method, but I did go over to Baseball Reference to check one of my hunches out. I think I may be correct, because...

...it's not that McClung is awful at home so much as he's not as good indoors as out. (Note: the Miller Park roof was not opened until the end of May in 2008.)

Outdoors, his WHIP is 1.31; indoors, it's 1.45. The big difference is in OPS, with .648 outdoors and .823 indoors.

I'm also wondering about games he's pitched in where the roof has opened and closed during the game. I recall the roof was opened and shut several times during his 6/21 start against Baltimore, but he started 4 other times in parks with retractable roofs and I can't find any data on roof openings in those.