Daily RoundUp- Wednesday March 11th

As spring training roars on, and the WBC gets more and more exciting, there are still some things in Florida that need a bit of sorting out. Like, is Joba going to be the man for the Yankees out of the five hole or are they going to have to put him into the bullpen? John Harper writes about the ongoing debate.

I hate when broadcasters use other great players as some sort of reference point for how good an up and coming player can be. Even worse is when they use an existing player as a reference point. Last year, Hank Steinbrenner uttered those now infamous words “he’s our Beckett,” when describing how good Joba could be. Why would you compare him to a player who’s still playing and who’s ceiling we may not have seen as a player? Its insane for any Yankee fan to build up this kind of expectations for a 23 year old and then have it consistently dismissed. Frankly the Yankees need to get some sort of stop gap for the five hole and let Joba eventually be the 9th inning guy. If his body doesn’t hold up during the year, the Yankees will not only have to consider it, they will HAVE to make him that but until then, I understand the need to see a guy who has 3 plus pitches come out every five days and hope he dominates. Sure the guy can eventually be a number one but he was so dominant as a reliever that you at least have to consider him as a reliever and keep the debate alive.


Speaking of baseball, if you missed last night’s game between the Dominican Republic and the Netherlands, you missed a heck of a game. Not quite USA over USSR in Lake Placid but definitely a big upset nonetheless. Honk if you love the Netherlands writes Kevin Kernan.

Its amazing how cocky the Dominican team was. Don’t get me wrong, they had a right to be. Their roster is full of Major League baseball all stars. But up and down you see guys who have not really done much when it was win or go home at stake. The point here is that no one, and I mean no one should be cocky enough to disrespect the game by dismissing any opponent even if its most visible star is Sidney Ponson.

After seeing most of his favorite players go, Donovan McNabb finally wrote on his blog to tell the public what he was thinking. The Inquirer’s John Gonzalez tries to interpret McNabb’s words.

I read the McNabb posting. I have no idea what this columnist wanted him to say? Did he want any more emotion than McNabb gave us on that blog post? What did you want him to cry E-tears? Maybe put up a twitter message saying ::sigh:: my best buds are gone? Its ridiculous the expectation of some of these reporters for their star players sometimes. They wanted him to cry as if there was no way the team was going to survive without two of his better friends, Tra Thomas and Brian Dawkins. Fact is, the Eagles are an organization run on a strict diet of keeping money low and talent high. They have always been strong about who to keep and who not to keep so when they don’t offer Dawkins or Tra Thomas a contract, its strictly business and its also very deliberate. It comes off very cruel and machine like for guys who gave up a lot to make Silly Philly a competitive team over the last decade but it’s the way an organization should be run: decisions made not on emotion but strictly on performance relative to the player’s cap figure.

While LeBron James and Kobe Bryant have been getting all the MVP talk, perhaps there’s another candidate who stood out with that amazing game winning shot on Sunday night that is clearly making a run: Dwayne Wade. Greg Cote of the Miami Herald makes the case.

Frankly, the Miami Heat are only relevant because of Dwayne Wade. His sheer will and exhausting game make it almost impossible to guard this guy. Clearly he wanted to make this year a comeback year for him and he’s doing just that. Coming back from an injury that others have been slower to come up from, he’s dominated and currently has better stats than the other two. Of course the faction who root for the other guys can say they have sacrificed individual numbers for the sake of team success. However, you can’t say that the Heat would have this kind of success if Wade shared the ball more. There is no guy that you want to have holding the ball with the game on the line and he makes sure his team is in position to win. He has the last two 40 point, 10 assist games. They both happened this season. He scores, passes, rebounds hits game winners. Come on America, jump on the Flash’s bandwagon!