Former Padres president to lead Miami Dolphins, former Dolphins president to lead Padres

Job swap, sports swap:

Reports out of Miami that former #Padres president Tom Garfinkel will be named today as #Dolphins president.

— Eric Fisher (@EricFisherSBJ) September 9, 2013

Former #Dolphins president Mike Dee now has Garfinkel’s job in San Diego as the two will literally swap roles.

— Eric Fisher (@EricFisherSBJ) September 9, 2013

Kinda neat. And while a little weird — you don’t hear a ton about baseball executives becoming football executives and vice-versa — if you’re not on the actual sports operations side of things I presume the skills are pretty comparable. Promote team, sell tickets, make sure ballpark/stadium is functioning, sign checks, avoid doing things like making fun of their opposing players for their psychological problems.

You know, the usual.

Former Angels outfielder Jabari Blash has signed a one-year deal with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced Friday. Per the Japan Times, the deal is said to be worth around $1.06 million. Blash was released from his contract with the Angels at the end of November.

The 29-year-old outfielder has had a rough go of it in the majors, where he failed to duplicate the promising results he delivered in the minors. While he consistently batted above .250 with 20-30 home runs per season at the Double- and Triple-A level, he petered out in back-to-back gigs with the Padres and Angels and slumped toward a .103/.200/.128 finish across 45 PA for Anaheim in 2018.

The hope, of course, is that the environment in NPB will help him get a better handle on his issues at the plate — in a best case scenario, resulting in a full-scale transformation that could make him more marketable to MLB teams in the future. To that end, Blash expects to be utilized as a cleanup batter in the Eagles’ lineup and will focus on assisting the club as they make a run toward the Japan Series.