Shea Hillenbrand, third baseman, was already on his way to San Diego. And now he’s got company. With the Padres deadline deal for the former Houston Astro, here comes Morgan Ensberg, third baseman. But just to make sure he had them all, Kevin Towers brought in Rob Mackowiak, sometimes third baseman, fresh from the Chicago White Sox.
The three newest Pads have combined to play 1124 games at third base. With Geoff Blum, whose primary position is also third base, and of course, Kevin Kouzmanoff, we’re talking 1588 games worth of experience for the Padres collective hot corner players. Too bad they couldn’t keep Russell Branyan around just for fun.
Rotoworld, as is often the case, had the line of the day, commenting about the Padres moves Tuesday:
The Padres have acquired Morgan Ensberg from the Astros, ESPN’s Buster Olney reports. Ensberg, Rob Mackowiak, Scott Hairston… we hope the Padres realize they’re only allowed to carry 25 players at a time.
I’ll say this much for Towers. At least on the surface, it looks like he was the only guy in the NL West even making an effort. The Padres were the busiest team both before and after the trading deadline. Meanwhile, the Dodgers made one little move to try to get better, trading infielder Wilson Betemit to the Yankess for reliever Scott Proctor. The Giants made one little move to try to get worse, and did, sending starter Matt Morris to the Pirates for outfielder Rajai Davis and a player to be named.
Rotoworld had a nice line about this one too:
The Pirates are no longer cheap. They’re still, however, quite bad.
In Denver and Phoenix respectively, the Rockies and Diamondbacks tried to stay the same, which took some doing, but they both managed to accomplish it.
So while the Padres may have played the worst second half baseball in the division thus far, it doesn’t make all that much difference. There really is no good team in the West. So Arizona has won nine of 10. I’m not convinced. Besides, the Pads made the most moves; that’s got to be worth something. And there’s zero chance of them running low on third basemen.
— HOWARD COLE