The MilwaukeeBrewers have exercised the club option in manager Ron Roenicke'scontract, keeping him with the team through at least the 2016 season, the club announced Thursday.

Roenicke, 58, has been with the Brewers since 2011. It has been his only stop as a manager.

In Roenicke's first year with Milwaukee, the Brewers won a franchise-record 96 games. They won their first NLCentral title in 29 years but lost to the eventual World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS.

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There had been speculation the Brewers might fire Roenicke after the team's second-half collapse last season but the team announced in October that he would return in 2015.

The Brewers led the division by 6.5 games on July 1, and held the division lead for a total of 133 days. They were tied for the division lead on Aug. 31 but went 9-17 in September and finished eight games behind theCardinalsin the division.

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Brewers excercise 2016 club option on manager Ron Roenicke

Having already locked up Giancarlo Stanton through at least 2020, the Marlins have secured the services of an even younger core player. Christian Yelich, their 23-year-old leftfielder, has agreed to a seven-year extension worth $49.57 million. It's the second-largest extension for a player in his service class, and it marks further evidence that the Marlins are trying to build around a stable cast of players.

The 23rd pick of the 2010 draft out of Westlake High School in California, Yelich debuted for the Marlins on July 23, 2013 and made a solid showing as a 21-year-old rookie, batting .288/.370/.396 with 10 steals in 62 games. He extended a similar performance across his first full season, batting .284/.362/.402good for the same 112 OPS+ as the year beforewith nine homers and 21 steals. Batting primarily in the leadoff spot, he scored 94 runs, the highest total by a Marlin since Dan Uggla scored 100 in 2010.

The annual breakdown of the deal has yet to be reported, but presuming that it incorporates this seasonduring which Yelich is making $570,000it will run through 2021, with a $15 million club option and a $1.25 million buyout for '22, his age-30 season. Had he not signed, Yelich would have been eligible for arbitration after the '16 season and for free agency after the '19 season. His deal falls shy of the seven-year, $58 million extension to which Andrelton Simmons agreed last year, the largest for a player with between one and two years of service time, but it beats all other comers in that service class according to data at MLB Trade Rumors:

That's good company, of which only the extension of Gyorkowho suffered through a miserable season marked by plantar fasciitis last yearhasn't worked out, though of course it's early in most of those deals.

Via the Sun-Sentinels Juan C. Rodriguez, Yelich is just the third homegrown Marlin to receive a contract of at least four years since owner Jeffrey Loria bought the team in 2002, following Josh Johnson (four years and $39 million in '10) and Stanton. His deal is the second-longest in team history behind Stanton's record-setting 13-year, $325 million deal, topping the six-year, $70 million extension that Hanley Ramirez signed in '08. Johnson and Ramirez were both traded as part of the teardown of the free agent-laden '12 team.

Based on the track record of agent Scott Boras, it's highly unlikely that the 22-year-old Fernandez, who's currently recovering from Tommy John surgery, will agree to an extension, but if he did, it would likely top that of Yelich. Fernandez has two years of service time, meaning that he can be arbitration eligible after this season and a free agent after '18both consequences of the team opening the '13 season with him on the roster instead of keeping him down in the minors to start the year, as the Cubs may do to Kris Bryant.

With Yelich joining Stanton in the fold, it will certainly be interesting to see how many of these other Fish take the bait, but even if not all of them do, the Marlins have secured another important piece of their future.

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Marlins keep building for future with longterm deal for Yelich

Ten members of Texas Emergency Medical Task Force (EMTF) 6 are gearing up for a full-scale exercise in New Mexico later this month.

The volunteer team, based out of the southeast Texas area, will be partnering with personnel from each of Texas eight EMTF Regions to deploy a Mobile Medical Unit to support the 26th annual Bataan Memorial Death March at White Sands Missile Range, about an hour north of El Paso. The march is a 26.2-mile trek through the high desert terrain of the missile range, conducted in honor of the heroic service members who defended the Philippine Islands during World War II.

In prior years, the Mobile Medical Unit has treated upwards of 700 patients over the course of the daylong event.

The Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, or SETRAC, is the lead agency for EMTF-6. Our EMTF teams regularly meet and train to be prepared for deployment to catastrophic emergency incidents, says Mark Sastre, EMTF Coordinator for SETRAC. This exercise is a great way to polish our skills as well as provide a valuable service to the men and women committing themselves to this intense course in memory of the fallen heroes from 1942.

The Texas EMTF program is a coordinated network of local medical resources that are rapidly deployable in the event of a regional or state disaster or large scale incident. When activated, the task force increases local medical surge capacity by providing emergency medical transport, hospital surge staffing, and mobile medical units. This is made possible in large part through Texas hospitals, fire departments, and emergency medical services departments, who maintain and house EMTF assets, and deploy personnel and resources when called upon. As the most intricate component of the EMTF program, the mobile medical units are modular, field-deployable facilities staffed by EMTF physicians, nurses, paramedics, and technicians capable of providing emergency medical care and stabilization in austere environments.

The member agencies and personnel of EMTF have really embraced the concept of One Team, says Brian Bayani, Chief of Northwest EMS in Tomball and a Task Force Leader for EMTF-6. Its a remarkable thing to be able to bring together resources from across the state to help our fellow Texans and our neighboring communities when needed.

For more information on EMTF-6, visit www setrac.org.

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Local Emergency Medical Task Force members prepare for New Mexico excercise