Welcome to Saturday Scorecard, a great place to keep warm until pitchers and catchers report.

Memory lapse: The Brewers made one of the more bizarre off-season transactions in franchise history Friday and it did not involve Franklin Stubbs, Sean Berry or Jeffrey Hammonds. General manager Doug Melvin announced that the club had exercised the 2009 contract option on manager Ned Yost ... in October.

During his annual "week before spring training" lunch with baseball writer Tom Haudricourt, Melvin was asked if he planned to exercise Yost's option in order to avoid the appearance of having a "lame duck" manager in the dugout.

That's when Melvin revealed that Brewers had exercised the option. In fact, he discussed the move with team owner Mark Attanasio and informed Yost of the decision right after the regular season, which the Brewers finished with an 83-79 record.

He just forgot to tell anybody else.

Melvin planned to announce the extension at the Winter Meetings, but got so busy trying to improve the roster that it slipped his mind.

The Brewers issued a press release Friday to announce the "news" that was more than four months old.

"That's not even on the radar," Yost said. "I don't worry about that stuff."

That's probably a good idea. Contract security aside, Melvin and Yost both know that fan expectations are high and Attanasio is eager for a winner.

Cox clone: When the Brewers named Yost, then Atlanta's third base coach, to be their manager on Oct. 29, 2002, several baseball insiders predicted that Yost would be a lot like his mentor, Braves manager Bobby Cox.

Though he doesn't get thrown out of nearly as many games, Yost's career managerial record is strikingly similar to Cox's.

In five seasons, Yost has managed 809 games and guided the Brewers to a 374-435 record and .462 winning percentage.

Because of the player's strike in 1981, Cox didn't manage his 809th game until about one-third of the way into his sixth season, his first with Toronto after being fired by Braves owner Ted Turner. His record after 809 games: 376-433, a winning percentage of .465.

Like Yost, Cox had one winning season in his first five tries (81-80 in 1980). In his sixth season, the Blue Jays went 89-73.

Change of scenery: The over-under is Feb. 25. That's the date of the Brewers' second full-squad workout of spring, which we think will mark the point when Yost and his players officially tire of talking about Bill Hall's return to third base from center field and rookie of the year Ryan Braun's move from third to left.

"It might be long ignored by then," Yost said when informed of the prediction. "You can only talk about it so much. I think it's going to be really beneficial to us. It wasn't a decision that we made haphazardly. There was a lot of thought; a lot of trying to figure out what is the best for our team and what puts us in the best position to compete for a championship this year. They're both tremendous athletes. It's going to be a bit of a challenge for Braunie, but I think he's going to be OK."

Yost, who saw Rickie Weeks make tremendous strides at second base two years ago, said he "would have loved to have given Braun another year" to get acclimated at third.

"We don't have time for that," he said. "We have to try to put our best defensive team on the field and go for it."

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