In July, Placido Polanco was named the starter on the National League All-Star team. Now his manager Charlie Manuel has made it known he wants an upgrade at third base.
Polanco finished the year at just .277 with five home runs and his OPS ranks 20th among 24 qualifying third basemen since the start of the 2010 season. Polanco did play superb defense as usual, but battled a sports hernia injury down the stretch after dealing with bone spurs in his elbow last year.
Polanco is entering the final year of a three-year, $18 million contract he signed with the Phillies prior to the ’10 season. He played in just 122 games last year and Manuel said durability is the top reason he would like an upgrade.
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Of course he wants to upgrade. Polanco should be playing second base or the outfield. We haven’t had a third baseman with power since Scott Rolen left. If the Phillies front office had any foresight, they could have fixed this problem when they had Jim Thome and Ryan Howard was in AAA. What they should have done was move Thome to third and put Howard at first. DUH! That would have given them the most feared 3-4 combination in baseball.
There’s no way Thome could have played third base though as late as 2005. He hasn’t even played first base since (other than 28 innings). I think the Phillies management did the right thing. There really weren’t a whole lot of options. If it was the American League, Thome could have stayed as a DH, but that isn’t the case.