Fish Bites

Welcome to the first ever Fish Bites, a bi-weekly foray into the world of the Marlins and their National League East counterparts, on Fish Stripes. Today, Fish Bites covers a few Marlins-related links for your reading pleasure this morning, brought to you by the entire crew at Fish Stripes.

- Javier Vazquez and Greg Dobbs, two of the Marlins' most pleasant surprises from the 2011 season, filed for free agency. All signs point to Vazquez retiring, but the Marlins owe it to themselves to do everything they can to bring him back for one more year, if he's interested. More recently, Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post indicated that if the Marlins could field a contender and offer $10 million, Vazquez could return for another year.

- Speaking of fielding a competitive team in 2012, it seems the Marlins are wide open to the possibility of making a big splash this offseason. Here is Larry Beinfest on the subject.

"With this added flexibility with the payroll going up, we want to improve this team," president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest said. "It was disappointing last year, and we're going to look at whatever we need to look at to try to make the team better." ... "If a free-agent signing, whether it's big or small, makes us better and it fits within our allocation and we think we become a better team, then it is something we have to look at," Beinfest said.

This sounds about right. Fans are excited to see the team go after big free agents, but everything has to fit appropriately to make it happen.

- However, if the Marlins are going to make a big move like a play for Albert Pujols, it needs to make business sense as well as baseball sense, as Juan C. Rodriguez of the Sun-Sentinel mentions. Team president David Samson mentioned that the team would be "aggressive...but not foolish" in its spending this offseason.

More links after the jump.

- In related news, the Marlins and the man formerly known as "Leo Nunez" are still working on a resolution to his current issues with coming back to the US. Surprisingly, the team may still be interested in retaining him despite the $5-6 million he will be owed in arbitration. Such a move would be the height of folly.

- Speaking of players who should return, Dave Gershman of Marlins Daily investigates whether Bryan Petersen has a future with the team. We here at Fish Stripes hope he does, even if it is as a backup outfielder.

- Other young players on the Marlins are contributing to baseball overseas right now. Both Logan Morrison and Emilio Bonifacio were a part of the MLB All-Star Team's Game 1 victory in the 2011 Taiwan All-Stars Series.

- Two more Marlins are up for possible awards this week, as Gaby Sanchez and Omar Infante are Gold Glove award finalists. Good for those guys, but that award has long since been discredited as mostly bogus.

- While those gloves may be good, this "official" Marlins hat may not be as awesome. Call me crazy, but that multi-colored contraption is growing on me. I may just have to get one when they come out. The pure black background certainly helps.