Placido Polanco Might Have Been Overnighted to Baltimore
By Justin Klugh
Following the Phillies’ ridiculous jabbering of the Brewers until they agreed to lose and went home, MLB Trade Rumors reported that another team was interested in one of the Phillies’ players.
“I know, I know; Cole Hamels and Jimmy Rollins are going to the Orioles in exchange for Mark Reynolds and like a hammer or something so they can put together the iron lung he comes with,” says you, rolling your eyes.
A-ha! That’s where you’re wrong. You’re wrong a lot.
The Orioles are actually interested in Placido Polanco, which is a sentence so far fetched I wouldn’t believe it either, unless I read it on other, better, more credible web sites. Which you can. Now, obviously MLB Trade Rumors is a site fueled by merely the rumors of trades within MLB, so we can’t think that our battered, broken, stiff, 36-year-old third baseman–who is also stoic and a defensive whiz and I like him a lot but man he is in rough shape–is automatically going to be shipped out of Philly in exchange for a something.
But imagine what we could get for Polanco! Seriously, conjure an image. What is it? Money? A guy from, like, Bowie? Or even lower in the Orioles farm system? Probably not more than one guy.
It won’t be a lot–Thome only went there for two–but it’ll be more than anybody thought we’d get for Polanco. So far it’s been hard to find his name in any rumors that don’t have “back stiffness” in the headline. Already, though, we can fantasize about a young Freddy Galvis, adapting at third while learning from an aging core of All-Stars as their replacements are quietly bred in the minors…
The Orioles have been scanning Bryan LaHair and Chase Headley as well, in hopes of getting some Moneyballer-OBP guy in the top of their order. The twist is, Polanco would be way cheaper for them to acquire! On account of the fact that he may or may not be currently injured!
So, the big question is, WTF? And the second one is, if this deal is for real, as much as we all respect Polanco as a guy and a glove and stuff, how quickly can this deal happen? And how many warm bodies from the cobwebby corners of the Baltimore farm system can we get for him?