Programming note: Content here will stop flowing around noon today, and the tap might be shut off until Monday. With many folks leaving town or off work for the holidays, and with us having other work duties, it seems like the sensible thing. (Since when have we been sensible? Yeah, good point. But still ...) We'll also be on 1500ESPN with Judd and Phunn talking Gophers men's hoops at 11 a.m.

OK, with that out of the way, here are five baseball thoughts after some major announcements Tuesday:

1) We're not crazy about the new replay rule, which now covers fair/foul ball questions and trap/no-trap questions. Our biggest concern: What do you do with a baserunner (or the batter for that matter) when a ball originally ruled foul or caught is suddenly ruled fair or trapped? How many bases do they get? Are runners allowed to score? Everything about the play changes. Baseball is such a fluid game that depends greatly on continuous action. As such, making assumptions about what MIGHT have happened is very problematic to us.

2) The new draft pick/free agency rules sound complicated, but not nearly as convoluted as before. That's a win.

3) Post-season expansion with an additional wild card in each league is the kind of thing that sounds bad on the surface but is probably one of those things we'll have to watch play out in order to really judge. We hated the three division/one wild card format when it was announced; now it just seems normal.

4) Does Ryan Braun win NL MVP 25 years ago? We think he probably doesn't, and that he loses to Matt Kemp -- the slugger from the Dodgers who led the league in homers and RBI but played for a mediocre team. We'll call Braun's win a victory for modern stats. Tim Kurkjian said last night on ESPN that he voted Braun No. 1 because he looks at such things as slugging percentage and OPS before any other stat. Braun led the NL with a .597 slugging percentage.

5) Quote of the day: "I think history will be very kind to Commissioner Selig." -- Twins President Dave St. Peter on Bud Selig. He's absolutely correct. With continuing labor peace, Selig looks like the best of the four major pro sport commissioners right now. Did you ever think that would be said?