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The Red Sox and Marlins have been discussing trade scenarios, with recent reporting indicating the Sox have have some interest in veteran infielders Joey Wendle and Miguel Rojas. It seems that they have also discussed a much more significant trade as well, with the Fish attempting to acquire young first baseman Triston Casas, per a report from Barry Jackson and Craig Mish of the Miami Herald.

Since Wendle and Rojas are both in their 30s and impending free agents, their trade value would be fairly modest. Casas, however, is turning 23 years old later this month, still has six remaining years of control and is generally considered one of the top 50 prospects in the game. If he were to be involved in any trade, it would surely go beyond a deal for Rojas or Wendle. The report from the Herald indicates Miami tried to pry Casas loose from Boston in discussions involving their starting pitchers.

There’s nothing to suggest that Boston is open to dealing Casas or ever gave serious consideration to the overtures coming from Miami. Still, it’s noteworthy that such a monumental deal has even been discussed. The Marlins have reportedly been trying to use their rotation surplus for a lineup boost for quite some time, but haven’t yet landed a deal to their liking. While ace Sandy Alcantara and top prospect Eury Pérez are reportedly off limits, the Fish seem to be willing to part with one of Pablo López, Jesús Luzardo, Trevor Rogers or Edward Cabrera in a trade that would give them an impact bat and targeted Casas to be that guy.

The 26th overall pick in the 2018 draft, Casas mashed his way up the minor league ladder and reached the majors last year at the age of 22. He struck out in 24.2 percent of his trips to the plate, which was a bit above league average, but he also walked 20 percent of the time and launched five home runs in just 27 games. His lopsided .197/.358/.408 slash line resulted in a 120 wRC+, indicating he was 20 percent better than league average. That’s a very small sample size, but he’s also hit extremely well in the minors. In 72 Triple-A games last year, he hit .273/.382/.481 for a wRC+ of 127.

Though it makes sense that the Marlins would be interested in an exciting young player like that, it also makes sense that the Sox would want to hold onto him. Boston acquired Eric Hosmer from the Padres at last year’s deadline but then were seemingly impressed enough by the debut of Casas that they released Hosmer in December. To suddenly pivot and include Casas in a trade would be quite shocking.

The Marlins are also potentially interested in Ceddanne Rafaela, another highly-touted Boston prospect but one further away from the majors. The 22-year-old infielder/outfielder reached Double-A in 2022 and should be ready for exposure to Triple-A this year. He’s generally not ranked as highly as Casas but still has some hype, with Baseball America currently considering him the #78 prospect in all of baseball and MLB Pipeline placing him in the #96 slot. However, Jackson and Mish report that the Marlins are prioritizing improving the 2023 team, making Rafaela less interesting to them than the MLB-ready Casas.

The general framework of a trade isn’t totally inconceivable, in the sense that the Sox could surely use the starting pitching that the Marlins have to offer. Chris Sale and James Paxton have hardly pitched in the past three years while recent signee Corey Kluber is about to turn 37 and has injury question marks of his own. Garrett Whitlock has worked well in relief but seems to be headed for a move to the rotation despite just nine career MLB starts to this point in his career. Nick Pivetta is arguably the most reliable member of the bunch but he’s never posted an ERA below 4.53. Adding some more insurance into that group would make sense but it seems the acquisition costs being discussed with Miami are steep.

Though the Marlins have enough starting pitching to interest the Red Sox and many other teams around the league, these talks perhaps give us some insight as to why a deal still hasn’t come to fruition, given their high asking price. With those talks yet to bear fruit, the club has been limited to free agency in their pursuit of upgrading an offense that produced an 88 wRC+ in 2022, good enough for 25th place in the league.

The club had known interest in José Abreu, with Jackson and Mish reporting they offered a two-year deal in the $40MM range. Instead, Abreu joined the Astros on a three-year deal with a similar salary, amounting to a $58.5MM guarantee. The Marlins then pivoted to Justin Turner and offered him a one-year deal worth $15MM. He instead joined the Red Sox on a deal that pays him $15MM in 2023 but also has a player option for 2024 that would push his guarantee to $21.7MM over two years. The Fish also reportedly offered Brandon Drury $19MM over two years but he ended up taking a slightly smaller $17MM deal with the Angels. It had been recently reported by Sam Blum and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic that Drury grew up an Angels fan and also had a pre-existing relationship with Angels’ manager Phil Nevin from when Nevin was managing the Diamondbacks’ Triple-A team that Drury was on in 2015 and 2016. After missing out on Abreu, Turner and Drury, the Marlins then got a deal done with Jean Segura.

While Segura is a solid addition, it seems the Marlins are still trying to complete a significant trade that will make an even larger impact on their lineup. It doesn’t seem likely that Casas will be the one, but it gives some sense of the type of impact player they have their eyes on. With about six weeks remaining until Spring Training, it will be very interesting to see what other players they pursue and if they can line up on a deal.

Being a Miami Dolphins fan is a function of wash, rinse, and repeat at some point for every one of us. The Phins are a bad team again so we fire everyone or at least the head coach, then hire the next new exciting head coach, maybe even a new GM, new coaching staff, add this or that free agent, and draft the next greatest ..... ever, do well for a bit, crash and burn and then do it all over again. As someone who has been on this ride as long as anyone, I do think that lack of patience at the top has been part of the problem, meaning maybe there was a coach, or perhaps an interim head coach that we should have stood by for a while to see what he would give us and the same could be said about certain players. Nothing hurts like cutting a young player to only see them go on to star elsewhere because our staff could not figure out how to coach the kid up or sometimes just had zero ideas on how to use them. Sometimes I feel like too much patience at times with certain players and staff or a general manager has hurt this team.

Whatever your point of view on the years of pain I think that we call all agree that while this season's version of the Dolphins has looked as amazing and exciting as we have seen in many years we also saw some of the glaring holes in this team resulting in more pain for all of us. The holes can be a lack of talent in a position or in some cases, where we all know that we clearly have a ton of talent but lack the production from a player or group of players may be the blame falls to the coaching staff be it in the scheme they are running, their ability to coach the scheme well or maybe the lack of understanding the best way to use the talents of certain players. Injuries, especially at the quarterback position, cannot be overlooked for some of the blame but this team has too much talent to struggle as it does at times.

None of us know what will happen this week. Maybe this team loses and sits home another year during the playoffs. Maybe we win and everything else works out and we go to the playoffs for the first time in forever. Maybe once there we surprise a few people. Either way, I don’t think that any of us think that we can go into next year without some changes. Be it players or coaches some are going to need to go and be replaced this offseason in my opinion.

So tonight's question is if you were one of the coaches on the Miami Dolphins staff which ones should be worried in your opinion? Which coaches do you believe will be replaced?

Give us your thoughts in the comments section below-

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Miguel Rojas has wasted no time in contributing to the Dodgers after joining the team from the Miami Marlins, and Spring Training hasn’t even begun.

During an appearance on The Chris Rose Rotation show, Rojas said that he’s already spoken with Miguel Vargas, who reached out for help working on his defense, and Diego Cartaya, another Dodgers prospect expected to see some playing time soon.

“I’m going to be working with those kids and trying to help them in any way that I can,” Rojas said. “I just want to make us better.”

Rojas, who typically played shortstop for the Marlins, is also contributing to the Dodgers’ success in another big way: He’s already agreed to switching things up and taking on a more utility-based role, with appearances at second and third base likely.

Jonathan Mayo at MLB.com lists Miguel Vargas as one of the top 10 third base prospects of 2023 and also calls out Vargas’s abilities at the plate.

The Dodgers are on pace to once again exceed MLB’s luxury tax in 2023, writes Bill Plunkett of the OC Register. Is anyone surprised?

Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic answers questions about a potential contract extension for Will Smith and more in his latest Dodgers mailbag.

Miami Heat forward Bam Adebayo isn't happy with how the fans have voted for the 2023 NBA All-Star game.

"I'll leave fan voting to fan voting," he said, per Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald. "There are guys that shouldn't even be on that list. But it's fan voting. That's what it is and you got to live with that."

Adebayo likely won't be an All-Star starter after sitting outside the top 10 among Eastern Conference frontcourt players in the latest fan vote, which makes up 50 percent of the vote for starters.

The 25-year-old is behind frontcourt players like rookie Paolo Banchero and Brooklyn Nets center Nic Claxton, while longshots like Austin Reaves, Kevon Looney and Derrick Rose were among the top-10 vote-getters in their categories.

Of course, Adebayo had an uphill battle to get a starting spot regardless with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid and Jayson Tatum fighting for three openings.

The former Kentucky star still has a chance to earn his second All-Star selection as a reserve, which is decided by the coaches.

"Right now I'm in a position where it's based off the coaches in the East," Adebayo said. "Now that, I'm going to be [upset] about if they tell me somebody else has played better than me this year considering I'm leading the NBA in paint points and I'm one of the reasons why we're winning."

Adebayo is averaging 21.6 points per game, which would be a career-high and a major jump from when he last earned an All-Star selection in 2019-20 (15.6 ppg). He's been a well-rounded contributor this year as well, adding 10.2 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.1 steals per game while his 2.6 defensive win shares ranks second in the NBA behind only Evan Mobley.

It's helped the Heat rank sixth in the East with a 27-22 record entering Wednesday despite being without Jimmy Butler for 15 games this year. Adebayo believes this is enough to get a bid to the Feb. 19 game.

"So for me, it's just that fan voting is fan voting. I'll let that be," he said. "But when it comes to coaches voting, that's when I feel like I deserve to be in it."

The Miami Dolphins' search for a new defensive coordinator continues to move along, with interviews scheduled this week, per multiple reports.

The four candidates who have been or will be interviewed, as confirmed by a league source, are longtime NFL defensive coordinator and former Denver Broncos head coach Vic Fangio, Seattle Seahawks associate head coach/defensive assistant Sean Desai, New Orleans Saints co-defensive coordinator Kris Richard, and Dolphins linebackers coach Anthony Campanile.

This, of course, doesn't mean there won't be other candidates who get interviews, and we've already seen the names of Arizona Cardinals DC and former Broncos head coach Vance Joseph and current 49ers defensive line coach Kris Kocurek mentioned as possibilities. Those two, it should be mentioned, are former Dolphins assistants.

Other names to remember would include former Bears and Texans head coach Lovie Smith, current Broncos defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero (if he's not retained by Denver's eventual new head coach) and Jets defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton.

FANGIO THE PROHIBITIVE FAVORITE?

While all the candidates have something unique to bring, it sure does seem as though Fangio stands as the favorite.

Maybe the big reason is that word was that McDaniel wanted to hire Fangio after the Dolphins made him their new head coach last February but the organization wanted him to retain Boyer.

While McDaniel and Fangio have never coached together, they share the same agent (Richmond Flowers) and have a long-standing relationship.

Fangio's track record also is another factor.

While he's currently a consultant with the Philadelphia Eagles, Fangio has served as a defensive coordinator in the NFL for 19 years with five different teams — the Carolina Panthers, Indianapolis Colts, Houston Texans, San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears.

His defenses have finished in the top 10 in fewest yards allowed eight times, including his last season as a DC with the Bears in 2018 when they were third.

Since then, Fangio spent three seasons as Denver head coach before his work with the Eagles this season.

In May 2022, The Athletic called Fangio "the most influential DC in modern NFL" and broke down his system, which features two deep safeties and a lot of pre-snap disguising, among other things.

In a 2019 ESPN story, former McDaniel colleagues Sean McVay, Matt LaFleur and Kyle Shanahan all were asked to name the coach with the toughest defense to read and attack. All three named Fangio.

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DESAI, RICHARD AND CAMPANILE

Richard is no stranger to the Dolphins, considering they interviewed him for the head-coaching opening in 2019 before hiring Brian Flores.

Richard spent three years as Seahawks DC after replacing Dan Quinn when he left to become head coach of the Atlanta Falcons in 2015. Richard inherited "The Legion of Boom" defense that had ranked first the previous two seasons and Seattle finished second, fifth and 11th in his three seasons before he was let go.

Merely getting an interview should be viewed as big kudos for Campanile, who has just three years of NFL experience on his resume, all of them as Dolphins linebackers coach. Campanile also never was a full-time DC in college, serving as co-DC/DB coach at Boston College in 2018.

He's also fighting precedent here, since the Dolphins haven't hired a defensive coordinator from within since 1996 when new head coach Jimmy Johnson promoted linebackers coach George Hill.

Desai just finished his first season with the Seahawks after being the Bears defensive coordinator in 2021. In his one season as a DC, Desai guided a Chicago defense that finished sixth in total yards allowed.

There are similarities between Desai and McDaniel in terms of age (they're both turning 40 this year) and their Ivy League education, with Desai graduating with a master's degree from Columbia before he earned a doctorate at Temple.

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