What They Are Saying…The Mike Jacobs Trade

Let’s get a feel for what the innerwebs are saying about the Mike Jacobs trade…

Rotoworld: A nice pickup for the Marlins, as Nunez is 24 years old, cheap and has posted a 3.42 ERA with a 63/25 K/BB ratio in 92 innings over the past two seasons. He’ll likely slide into a setup role initially, but could be in the mix for saves at some point in 2009.

MarlinBaseball.com: Philly and Tampa had the two best bullpens in the playoffs and that contributed to their runs to the W.S. Bullpen strength and depth is huge. Trading for bullpen help is always a pain in the ass at the deadline (please see: Brian Fuentes 2008). Getting a just-turned 25 year old who has already shown a great ability to set up is so exciting.

Season Ticket: I’m not one to bet against Larry Beinfest. My concern is that, if Sanchez plays first, then Jorge Cantu will go back to third base, where he struggled. In a perfect world, the Marlins would find a taker for Jeremy Hermida, whose intangibles don’t match his skill level. And I still believe that Hanley Ramirez could be playing leftfield in a year or two.

Royals Authority: In my opinion, trading Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs is a low risk, low cost insurance policy in case the September 2008 Ryan Shealy disappears and Kila Kaaihue hits .228 in Omaha next year. In the end you have two questions to answer: Mike Jacobs or Ross Gload? Can you replace Leo Nunez in the bullpen?

Royals Review: Jacobs has legitimate power and should be an upgrade over Gload. Unfortuately, that isn’t really a useful standard. Losing Nunez isn’t a disaster, but considering the Royals already had upgrades over Gload on hand, and that 1B/DH is the easiest position to fill, the trade just seems, in a best case scenario, pointless. Questions about Moore’s ability to build a lineup unfortunately must continue. C

It looks like most Marlins fans are looking at this deal as addition by subtraction and I think Royals fans are left sitting there scratching there heads.

Blogosphere: Dolphin Win Reactions

As the numbness of yesterday’s win starts to rub off as you make you way to your desk at work or the coffee maker in the kitchen, relive yesterday’s historic win with a trip around the blogosphere (yeah I stole the idea from Deadspin, sue me)…

• FinsNation - Also, Jason Taylor has balls of steel. Greg Camarillo: Cojones de metal. Cleo Lemon: Not quite steel balls but they are a metallic-like alloy of some kind. Same goes for Lorenzo and Marty Booker. All five of these guys played a significant role in getting us our first win in over a year. Sweet baby Jesus it’s been a long time. And it feels so damn good.

• The Phinsider - After 372 long, long days, the Miami Dolphins have won a regular season football game!! That’s right. You aren’t dreaming. The Dolphins have one. In doing so, their 2007 season will soon be forgotten, unlike the ‘76 Buccaneers. Sure, it’s only one win. But it keeps this team from infamy. And following Greg Camarillo’s 64 yard touchdown catch in overtime, this team and their fans celebrated like they had just won a Super Bowl. Even owner Wayne Huizenga shed some tears. And that’s what football is all about.

• Armando Salguero (Miami Herald) - They celebrated like they had just won the Super Bowl and that is not wrong, because the sense of accomplishment and happiness and sheer thrill among the Miami Dolphins on Sunday afternoon could rival that of any team claiming a championship. When Greg Camarillo finished his 64-yard winning touchdown sprint, he also put an end to the Dolphins’ marathon run at infamy. The 22-16 overtime victory over Baltimore changed very little. And it changed everything.

• The Fanhouse - Two things: First, the Baltimore Ravens are the worst team on the planet. They proved that today. Second, Dolphins wide receiver Greg Camarillo’s will now be known outside his immediately family. Camarillo is in his second season out of Stanford, and was released earlier this year by the Chargers. Must be the jersey. (The Dolphins should all sport No. 83s for the rest of the year. Can’t hurt.)

Blogosphere: The Muell on the Hot Seat?

Pretty slow day today, let’s see what other bloggers are doing on the company dime…

Someone has to pay the price for the Dolphin’s pathetic start to the season and according to FinsNation via PFT, Randy Mueller might be the guy.

Matty from The Phinsider gives his opinion’s on the Travis Johnson/Trent Green debacle.

Armando Salguero author of the blog Dolphins in Depth poses the question to his readers “Why didn’t Miami see this train wreck coming?” Alot of good thoughts in this post including plenty of comments and theories from the commenters.

Juan C. Rodriguez, who is one of the few local guys who follows the Marlins in the offseason and writes for the Marlins Sun-Sentinel Blog, gives us Fish fans some insight on the search for our new pitching coach.

For some strange reason, Omar Kelly of the Sun-Sentinel Dolphin’s Blog, thinks Trent Green is not done and has plenty of good football left in him. Did Omar suffer a concussion as well this weekend.

Israel Gutierrez from On the Beat gives us a list of things to look for when watching/listening to tonight’s preseason matchup with the Atlanta Hawks.

Blogosphere: The Dolphonian’s Are Back

Slow day in local news, let’s see what’s going on in other people’s blog world…

Some random Dolphins have a special message for you in another episode of The Dolphonian’s over on FinsNation.

MiamiSportsBlog explains that even though Dwyane Wade missed half of last season, his jersey is still tops in sales in the United States Europe.

From his E-Mail bag Tuesday, Matty over on The Phinsider received a very interesting one from a source who tells Dolphin’s fans to chill out and give Cam Cameron some time to put his “touch” on the team.

Via MetsBlog. A free download of the book “The Knuckleball from Hell” by author Michael Wayne telling Mets fans to relax and he feels your pain. For those interested in a humorous book about baseball stop by KnuckleBallFromHell.com. I love baseball books, this one should be a treat.

Armando Salguero of Dolphins in Depth decides to stop being Debbie Downer and go over who he thinks is actually playing well for the Dolphins at this point in the season. From a list of 5 players, one is Jay Feely and another is Donovin Darius. I guess it’s good our kicker and a waiver pickup are our best assets right now.

Ira Winderman from the Sun-Sentinel Heat Blog will blogging from the AAA after the Heat’s Friday practice. He breaks down what he will be looking for.

Ever wonder why Dwyane Wade wears the number 3? I’m sure most people would be interested to know why or where most athlete’s get their numbers from. PetroRabbits does an extensive job breaking down the origins of D-Wade’s number 3.

Wednesday Morning Matter: Selig Speaks and Fredi Gets Thrown Under the Bus

Again allow me to apologize for the lack of posting the last week or so. Work has really taken up alot of my time during the day. The good news is I start a vacation tonight and will be back and posting throughout the rest of the week. In the meantime stop by some of my favorite blogs and see what they have been covering lately…

Olindo Mare has always made excuses for his crappy field goal misses. You know that old saying some things never change? Well, some things never change. With the Dolphins playing the Saints this week in New Orleans, Mare decided to open his big mouth regarding the Dolphins and their “infield dirt” problem at Dolphin stadium. Of course, FinsNation had an opinion on this and rang in.

While I can’t stand the Yankees/Red Sox series (mainly because ESPN tries to shove it down your throat 24/7) I do enjoy the rivalry and I do enjoy Sox & Dawgs coverage of each and every series. Stop by to get your “non-biased” taste of the Sox/Yankees showdown this week.

During a slow and dreary offseason Ira Winderman has been doing a good job covering the Heat’s offseason, putting alot of doubt in fans minds and making alot of friends in the meantime on his blog. Yesterday he dropped a piece on “life without Shaq” and if the Heat would be better off without the “Big Vacation” and his hefty salary. I think reading the comments on his blog are more interesting than the actual blog post itself sometimes.

If you hadn’t heard Bud Selig was in town yesterday to speak on what is being called “MLB’s Top Priority”. Well if you were expecting an announcement that a site was found, more money was found for the stadium or Loria was being tossed out of baseball, you would have been extremely disappointed. The Marlins Ballpark News covers the story and provides links to the videos.

The Marlins are in the middle of what one could call a “rough patch”. Arguments are being made that the Fish have taken a step backwards b/c of discipline which all stems back to the manager. I personally do not think the manager is that big of a deal but sometimes these guys just don’t look interested in being on the field. Scotty Olsen agree’s and thinks it’s the managers job to get them motivated. Hey Scott, just a thought, how about not going out all night and fighting police so your sharp the next day for your start. Check out Scotty’s comments in the Palm Beach Post.

Blogosphere: FinsNation Launches

I need to take this time to give a little promotional help for my buddy Chris from MiamiSportsDude.com. He has been working feverishly to get his new site up and running and today was the launch.

Duderino decided to pursue his love of the Dolphins and transform his site MiamiSportsDude to 100% Phins content in FinsNation - The Greatest Miami Dolphins Blog In The Universe!.

Stop by say hello and tell em SporTech sent ya!

FinsNation Launches

Blog Updates: Random Redirect, Amazon Store, Blogroll Drive-by

As you guys know I always like to keep you informed of any site upgrades or implementation of new scripts or features that can benefit not only myself but you the reader/commentor. As you have probably noticed by now I completed the upgrade to the new and fresh design of Freshy 2.0. So far I am getting nothing but great compliments. The theme seems to play nicely with Firefox the best as well as Opera. I would recommend downloading Firefox if your not currently using it. It’s by far and away better than IE6 or 7. UPGRADE NOW!!! If you happen to find any part of the new site design not functioning properly or would like to see something better, please do not hesitate to drop me a line. I like email and hearing from people.

I’m not sure if anyone has noticed over the past month or so I’ve had pretty random problems with the database of this site. This was not my problem nor yours as it was being caused by a faulty piece of hardware, mainly a bad IDE cable. Hah, a bad IDE cable making my database crash every other day. Weird eh? I don’t get it but that’s why I just write the blog and not maintain the server myself. My buddy lotek (winner of last years Fantasy Football league) will take care of that. Thanks again lotek.

Let’s get on to the recent changes and upgrades you should be aware of…

Random Redirect - I have to give a hat tip to UnEasySilence for this one. By the way, UnEasySilence is a great tech/entertainment blog I read daily. I think you might enjoy it. Take a look at the transparent header bar right above this post. You will notice an all new Randomize button for you to play around with. Feel free to use it and abuse it. This will allow you on any given day to randomly read an old or new article from SporTech’s vast archive. If you feel like bookmarking this link just add the following to your favorites or bookmarks. http://www.sportech.info/?random Enjoy!

SporTech Amazon Store - You might have also noticed on the fancy transparent toolbar that there is a SporTech Amazon Store. This is a very special feature I would like for you to utilize. This is a full fledged Amazon store with the complete Amazon catalog. You can search and buy anything you like directly from Amazon via SporTech Matter. Why does this benefit you? Well you will have that warm fuzzy feeling everytime you buy something from Amazon that I get some credit in my Amazon Associate account. Thus your helping me reach my goal of becoming a millionaire. I think you will enjoy the functionality of the Amazon Store. Enjoy!

SporTech Your Inbox - Powered by Feedburner. You may have noticed on the syndication widget over on the right a little box to insert your email address. This is not for me to collect email addresses to spam. We do not condone that here. That is so you can receive a fresh copy of the SporTech Matter Daily Digest right in your inbox and enjoy it with a nice fresh cup of coffee. Sign up now!

Meta Widget - Added a Meta widget to the sidebar. Manage your SporTech user account, RSS feeds etc… You don’t have a SporTech user account? Well what are you waiting for? Sign up now!

SporTech Flavored Google Search - Below the archives sidebar widget you will now notice a search box. This will allow you to search the web using Google or search SporTech using Google’s search engine. The neat feature of this search is it keeps you within SporTech’s site. It’s like having Google right inside your website! Try it now on the sidebar.

Couple of Blogroll updates…

Miami Heat Wired - Newest addition to the Friends of SporTech Matter. J David does a great job (and great design) of his Miami Heat weblog. Daily news on events, free agency and general opinion pieces J David keeps you up to date on the latest for your Miami Heat.

SporTech YouTube Page - All new and improved. Tons of South Florida Sports videos updated weekly. Recently uploaded the whole Inside the Heat series of videos including behind the scenes videos of Dwyane Wade, Jason Williams, and Udonis Haslem.

Blogosphere: Where Have You Gone JD?

First off, hope everyone had a safe and healthy fourth of July. Hopefully you had a better time then these people. In combination with the holiday I decided to take a few days off from blogging and allow the SporTech pigskin league to get filled up with GM’s. Well it took 2 whole days but the slots are filled and ready to go. Invite emails have been sent off, check your email you used to leave your comment.

I figured since I’ve been AWOL the last few days I would get you caught up on what’s been going on. Let’s get it started…

• The MiamiHeatWave blog has gotten a new design. Stop by jonnylons’ wonderful Heat blog and catch yourself up on all the offseason happenings for your Miami Heat. Lots of good stuff from our offseason plans and signings of center Joel Anthony, guard Jeremy Richardson and forward Marcus Slaughter.

• Miguel Cabrera has let it be known he would like to be involved in this year’s Home Run Derby. MLB heard and signed him up. Cabs will have Fredi Gonzalez tossing BP to him during the event.

• Heat fans are getting impatient with free agency. I however am getting impatient with the decision on whether Pat Riley will return to coaching the Heat next season. Looks like I’m not the only one.

• Are the Panthers working on a deal to bring fan favorite Ed “Jovo Cop” Jovanowski back to the South Florida ice? They have put the feelers out. Chances are a deal won’t get done at the fear of needing to break up a young, talented core of players.

• SporTech commenter J David has a new Miami Heat blog he started in June. He does a great job of keeping up with the Heat daily. Stop by and bookmark his blog.

• What happens if Barry Bonds arrives in South Florida sitting on 755? Under terms of its contract, ESPN can break into programming and show Bonds’ at-bats, live, only when the network is carrying baseball programming at the time — either games or Baseball Tonight. FSN Florida will carry the Marlins at Giants series July 27-29.

In case you were at work or were not aware the Marlins had a day game against the Padres yesterday (which BK outpitched the untouchable Jake Peavy) check out this Alfredo Amezaga web gem (which Baseball Tonight ranked 5th)…

I would have assumed this was the best play of Alfredo’s career, but my buddy over on MB.com points out this ranks second to this gem of a play. That might be the most redonkulous play I have ever seen a shortstop make. Yes, I said it, REDONKULOUS.

(Update: It looks like Craig over on Fishstripes picked this up as well. Check out his quotes from 1B Mike Jacobs and then watch the video at the MB.com link above.)

Hope everyone had a lovely week and nice holiday on Wednesday.

Blogosphere: Future Fish and The Daily Growl

Just wanted to bring to your attention a couple of old and new blogs I have been reading alot of lately…

Future Fish: Matt over at Future Fish does a great job of bringing up to the minute news about the Florida Marlins minor league system. My favorite feature is the daily round ups that are done of the daily boxscores. Stop by, say hello to Matt and like Large Marge always said, “Tell em SporTech sent ya!”

The Daily Growl: The Daily Growl was started by SporTech friend Alex Carver of the MVN network. Seeing as there are not many blogs about the Florida Panthers, this one was welcomed by all fans in South Florida. Daily news and ongoings with the Panthers organization can be found at the Growl. Alex recently did a great recap of the Panther’s draft. Stop by and say hello to Alex.

Detour: Just Who is Jason Wood?

I’m a huge Jason Wood fan. Anyone who sticks with his skill through good times and bad and continues to come to work with his head raised high gets two thumbs up in my book. His story is unique. He is in his 17th season and has only logged 129 major league at bats. At age 36 you would think it would be time to hang em up. Well try telling Jason Wood that. How Can You Walk With Four Balls has the story. Here is a snippet…

Living off of one-year minor league contracts, the Marlins continued to re-sign Wood year after year (five total one-year deals). As a late September call-up in 2006, Wood would only get 13 at-bats, but produced with a .462 average. Those 13 at-bats, though a paltry sample size, remained fresh in Larry Beinfest’s mind and Wood made a Major League 25-man roster out of Spring Training for the first time in his career.

Hat tip to Deadspin for the source.

Most Marlin’s fans have no idea who Jason Wood is, now you do.