The Mark Ellis trade market has suddenly picked up after couple of key broken bones to contenders. The Diamondbacks recently lost Orlando Hudson for the year, and today, Evan Longoria went down with essentially the same injury: a broken bone from a hit-by-pitch.

Ellis is hitting .231/.317/.361, which isn’t really any better than Orlando’s backup, Augie Ojeda (.257/.358/.324). So even with the defensive upgrade to Ellis, the Diamondbacks might not want to pay the price. Then again, Ellis would be going from one of the most difficult ballparks for hitting to one of the easiest, so his numbers would probably improve. Susan Slusser of the Chronicle adds her weight to this speculation.

This article suggests that the Rays will replace Longoria with Willy Aybar, who is hitting .225/.299/.379. Even with his bad season at the plate, Ellis would still be an improvement over Aybar at the plate, and is an improvement over anybody in the field. Now obviously Ellis isn’t a third baseman like Longoria, but current Rays 2B Akinori Iwamura played third base last year, so the Rays could switch him back. Although I’m not sure why the Rays wouldn’t just play Eric Hinske at third base over Aybar and never mind Ellis.

All of this assumes that Ellis has/will pass through waivers. There is no word on that.