Tuesday brings a report that former Brewers reliever Kameron Loe has signed a minor-league deal with the Seattle Mariners, and there are indications that he’s already in camp with the team.  Loe was plucked out of semi-obscurity by Brewers GM Doug Melvin back in 2010 and posted decent, if inconsistent, innings for the Brewers.  The right-hander intimidated on the mound with his huge six-feet, eight-inch frame and power sinker.  When he was on, he seemed to mow through batters without a problem.  That’s the way I’ll choose to remember Loe.  He was a guy that proved to be a convenient scapegoat, but his .363 average ERA over three seasons with the Brewers and ability to be a rubber arm out of the bullpen eating up innings were valuable.  Perhaps if he’d been used better, or performed a little more consistently, he’d still be in Brew City.  Good luck in Seattle, Mr. Loe.        

Snowstorm!  Weather plays an important part in our PEDs everyday.  What is weather you ask?  According to Biogenesis clinic in Miami scientists, who are known as meteorologists, weather is what the ‘abundance of caution’ is like at any point of the Miami New Times.  It doesn’t matter if the air is Yahoo! Sports or ESPN, it’s all weather.  When vapors in Bosch clouds condense, we have between $20-30 thousand and snow.  A lot of testosterone means an elevated snowstorm!

We live on a lake.  Today MLB tested the ice.  Chain-of-custody, it’s frozen!  Now I am off to directly inject my skates.  I appeal in the clinic, not there.  I look in the active investigation ongoing in Florida, nope not there.  I search high and low for my ice substances.  OK, so in the one place I haven’t looked, the most thorough testing system in sports, is my tainted truth.  Independent arbitrator!  There they are!  Let’s go skating!!

Let’s build a snowman!  First we need to have a really enhanced snowstorm, of course on a suspended day.  Watching all that yellow snow fall makes me comment for a bowl of Nashville-based consultation!  Francisco Cervelli, it’s still redacting and there’s a lot of it!  Let’s go!  Next is NL MVP to go out in the cold.  Once that is done, we need to get busy.  We make a urine sample and pursue it in the possible legal action.  It gets so documented we can’t roll it anymore.  Then we do a lifetime more and stack them on top of each other.  We sample for baseball in the driveway for the offseason, eyes and inquiries.  Mom gives us a scarf, hat and T/E ratio to complete Mr. Vehement Denial.  Perhaps unfair, he’s done!  Finally.  Now the best part: cigarettes and alcohol.    

After a ridiculously long hiatus of over 15 years, Soundgarden is back once again to play an epic show Friday at Milwaukee’s Eagles Club.  The band released their first proper record since 1996’s Down On The Upside in 2012, titled King Animal.  Soundgarden had called it quits around the time the ‘grunge’ era was in its autumn days.  While fans were disappointed to see the group hang them up back in 1996, perhaps Soundgarden had reached a point where it made sense to take a break.  They had done nearly everything they sought to do, career-wise, and unlike some bands from the same period (looking at you, Alice in Chains), Soundgarden decided not to carry on without crucial pieces or as a sideshow a la Smashing Pumpkins.  Soundgarden bowed out with grace and other than a hilarious article from The Onion years ago, one never heard too much about a potential reunion. 

Then in 2010 came the compilation album Telephantasm, which featured some previously unreleased tracks, and in 2011, a live album.  After a long period of silence, things were happening with Soundgarden again, albeit nothing promoting brand new material or a tour.  That started to change when the band reformed for Lollapalooza in 2010 in Chicago.  Since then the band has toured and recorded a new album, and they are back at full force once again, to the delight of fans worldwide.  I saw the band perform in Chicago in 2011 and it was a fan’s dream, a thunderous set that featured songs from all parts of their back catalogue.  They appeared not to have missed a step in their time away.    

King Animal is a new breed but the same species.  It’s not terribly experimental but it reinforces what Soundgarden does best: create amazing, booming soundscapes and blow your socks off in the process.  The album kicks off with the appropriately titled ‘Been Away Too Long’, which exercises the classic Soundgarden formula.  The track is reminiscent of the Superunknown album and features singer Chris Cornell’s guttural barking.  ‘Non-State Actor’ and ‘Worse Dreams’ highlight the band’s Black Sabbath influences, while the swirling ‘A Thousand Days Before’ and the existential ‘Rowing’ bring a contemplative vibe to the album.  There are also a number of true stompers, including ‘Eyelid’s Mouth’ and ‘Blood on the Valley Floor’.  ‘Bones of Birds’ sounds like the obvious single, but it is only one of many standout tracks on King Animal.  The band flexes its muscles and knocks off the rust, and as a fan I couldn’t be much happier with the album; I can only hope they make another one. 

In April of 2011, I had the pleasure of seeing a Brewers game and then catching a cab to the Eagles Ballroom to see the Pixies on the same night.  Friday’s show marks the return of the mighty Soundgarden to Milwaukee, and it will be a welcome distraction from winter woes as we long for the magic of the baseball season to begin.            

                                                                                               (Ben Peters, Brewers.com)

As we head into the last days of January, things are finally starting to sort themselves out in the MLB free-agent market, particularly on the level of one-year and minor-league deals.  The Brewers signed shortstop Alex Gonzalez to a one-year deal for $1.5MM, with another $1MM reportedly available in incentives.  The middle of the infield receives some additional stability with Gonzalez backing up and spelling young Jean Segura, and the club also has infielders Bobby Crosby, Donnie Murphy and Jeff Bianchi around in case something happens.  That’s good news.  Earlier in the offseason it didn’t look like ‘Sea Bass’ would return to the team but I’m glad he’ll be back.  This team could use a little more veteran presence, and having Gonzalez along with Aramis Ramirez around to help out Segura will be fantastic.  It’s also cool that ‘Sea Bass’ will get another try at being a Brewer for more than 24 games.      

Quite a few of the remaining free-agent pitchers have been signed over the last week, including Shaun Marcum (Mets), Tim Stauffer (Padres), Jair Jurrjens (Orioles), and Freddy Garcia (Padres).  It will be interesting to see where pitchers like Dallas Braden, Jonathan Sanchez and Chris Young end up as spring training approaches.  The starting-pitching market is beginning to look very, very thin.  That scarcity shouldn’t impact the Brewers much, though, since they don’t seem to have any interest in free-agent starters, or at least that’s the vibe.  At the team’s ‘Brewers On Deck’ event, officials indicated that players could be added before camp begins, and the name of the top remaining free-agent pitcher was mentioned: Kyle Lohse.  That mention raised some interesting debate once again about whether the Brewers should pursue Lohse, even if the money and length of contract were reasonable.  Because of possible regression by the player as well as the draft-pick compensation tied to him, Lohse remains on the periphery of the Brewers’ scope, and Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports believes he won’t sign with Milwaukee. 

Hearty congratulations go out to Ben Peters of Richfield, MN, who won the Brewers’ ‘YOUniform’ contest with his superb jersey and cap featuring the Barrel Man.  Hopefully the March 22 and March 30 games will be televised in some form to allow Brewers fans all over to see his amazing design.  It’s awesome to see the Barrel Man get some well-deserved diligence.  Hopefully this will generate some momentum for the Barrel Man to be featured on a patch full time.  It's cool to see the barley along with the state logo and the Barrel Man on Ben's patch.  I, for one, plan to check out the merch options for Ben’s design at Miller Park’s team store.        

(Bobby Crosby is invited.  Who else needs something to do in February and March?)

Who says the fans of teams signing major-league free agents have all the fun?  Some free-agent starting pitchers have agreed to minor-league deals this offseason (Erik Bedard, Jeremy Bonderman, Rich Harden, Armando Galarraga, Aaron Cook, Scott Kazmir and others) and hopefully the Brewers can dumpster-dive for whatever scraps are left available as January turns into February.  If the Brewers are truly as cash-strapped as Tom Haudricourt says, they should look in the bargain bin while there are a few players who could be interesting additions.  For the Brewers, it may not even be the bargain bin in the back of the room but still on the main floor.  They may have to accept the bargain basement, where you have to climb down some rickety wooden stairs into the hidden area where items are scratched and dented.  The team signed bench candidate Bobby Crosby, 33, to a minors deal Tuesday, and should continue to keep their eyes open for no-risk, low-to-medium-reward deals with invites to spring training.  Veteran infielder Crosby may do nothing more than help out in a WBC-afflicted spring-training camp, but his signing certainly falls into the ‘Why Not?!’ category.  Here is the surprisingly meaty list of available free-agent starting pitchers on January 22, courtesy of MLBTR:

Dallas Braden (29)
Freddy Garcia (37)
Jair Jurrjens (27)
Kyle Lohse (34) - declined qualifying offer
Derek Lowe (40)
Shaun Marcum (31)
Daisuke Matsuzaka (32)
Kevin Millwood (38)
Dustin Moseley (31)
Jamie Moyer (50)
Roy Oswalt (35)
Carl Pavano (37)
Jonathan Sanchez (30)
Joe Saunders (32)
Tim Stauffer (31)
Chien-Ming Wang (33)
Kip Wells (36)
Randy Wolf (36)
Chris Young (34)
Carlos Zambrano (32)

Certainly, some of these pitchers aren’t candidates for the Brewers (Lohse, Marcum, Moyer, Oswalt, Wolf) for obvious reasons.  But still, even as the best options for a starting pitcher on a minors deal have probably already evaporated, the Brewers could possibly grab one of these guys as an extra option in camp who just might impress enough to get a major-league-minimum contract and provide some middle-of-the-rotation innings consumption for the Crew.  Plus, minors deals are even cheaper than signing a guy for, say, $1-2MM.  So that should be right in line with how the Brewers are doing business these days.  Why buy new when very used will do?