Tuesday, Jul. 14, 2009

A Royal boner

By Eric Degerman, sportstricities.com

Has Bill Bavasi been hired by the Kansas City Royals as a special consultant to general manager Dayton Moore?

That's the only explanation that makes sense as I smile and give thanks for Jack Zduriencik — Bavasi's thus-far successful successor as GM of the Seattle Mariners — being able to find some team/repository for enigmatic shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt.

Of course, Kansas City’s Willie Bloomquist, Jose Guillen and Gil Meche publicly praised the acquisition of Betancourt, whom they played with during their days as Mariners.

And it's true that M's manager Don Wakamatsu doesn't have an offensive threat at the position now, but Ronny Cedeño has decent range and some speed. More importantly, Cedeño hustles and seems to care. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell if Betancourt even wanted to be on the field. He certainly didn't want to take instruction or a base on balls.

One of the baseball blogs that I subscribe to is Tim Dierkes' MLBTradeRumors.com, and his most recent Week in Review post referred to the trade of "Puny" in the following light...

"In a puzzling move to say the least, the Royals dealt their #3 prospect, Danny Cortes, and another pitcher to the Mariners to acquire Yuniesky Betancourt. This trade has been widely lamented by Royals fans, and with good reason. Betancourt's numbers have plummeted since he signed long-term with the Mariners, and those same numbers suggest that he has deteriorated to one of the worst offensive players in baseball, to go along with a terrible glove. I don't understand the Royals' side of this trade at all."

It didn't take me long to find this fan site that did some sabermetric analysis of Betancourt and arrived at the following: "Can't hit, can't run, doesn't take a walk, can't play defense... Holy crap."

And for a national perspective, Portland-based Rob Neyer of ESPN.com referred to the move as "brain-dead."

I just wish Z could have pulled off the dumping before Betancourt's outfield collision with Endy Chavez, which ended Chavez's season in gruesome fashion.

The fact that Z got back two young arms — including the Royals 2008 minor league pitcher of the year in Cortes — is gravy. However, Cortes carries some baggage. But the Mariners only are on the hook for about $3 million of the rest of Betancourt’s contract, which has about $8 millon remaining. My guess is that the carefree Betancourt won't be in the game by the time his deal expires in October 2011.

Could the Royals use another starting pitcher? I've got a suggestion...