Royals Get Rid Of Yuniesky Betancourt

Jeffress didn’t show much (other than wildness) in his first cup of coffee last year. And he didn’t show much in the AFL this fall other than the same wildness – walking more than one an inning. That said, he’s gotten a ton of strikeouts and had a fair amount of success over his minor league career with 10.6 K/9 and an ERA just under four. That’s the positive side. Still, the wildness is a real issue – and he his numbers have declined dramatically with each promotion. Kansas City has known bullpen issues, but I’m skeptical thaT Jeffress is going to be ready to make a contribution. If he ever will. Control problems make any pitcher unusually risky, if they work them out they could be the next Randy Johnson but if they don’t they simply can’t hack it in the bigs. Think of Jeffress as the Franklyn German of this trade. Remember him? I didn’t think so.

Lorenzo Cain is risky for a different reason. If you look at his 2010 numbers from the high-minors and Milwaukee, he looks like the next David DeJesus. He’s got speed, he hits for average and takes walks – plus he’s got a little (just a little) pop which could conceivably grow. But I don’t think I need to warn anyone of the dangers of just looking at a player’s breakthrough season. He had a great 2010, but his 2009 was horrible. He was solid in 2008 – but his 2007 was horrible. Put it all together, and you get a question mark the size of Brennan Boesch. If 2010 represents Cain’s new plateau, the Royals are going to be very pleased. If not… it’s anyone’s guess. Nonetheless, at this point it does look as though Cain will be the heir apparent to the center field job in KC.

Alcides Escobar was the Brewers top prospect going into 2010, and he spent the whole year with the big-league team. Not only was he the Brewers top prospect, Baseball America had him ranked #12 in the nation. Escobar will undoubtedly be starting at short for the Royals in 2011, now that Betancourt has been moved to make room. Now to touch on Betancourt again: he hit a few dingers in 2010 and managed to drag his WAR total positive, but he is fundamentally a replacement level player. He does not field his position well, he does not get on base and he does not run. Dayton Moore has caught a lot of flak for seeking out, and what is worse giving playing time to, guys like Betancourt, Mike Jacobs and now Jeff Francoeur. Now Betancourt is gone. By both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference measures, he’s been worth negative WAR in the aggregate over the past two years. KC can only get better by getting rid of one of the worst regulars in the game, right? This part of the deal I like, and it’s unexpected coming from a GM like Moore: the biggest hole for the Royals was Betancourt – the top prospect in the deal should be a shortstop! And lo, it was.

Or maybe it wasn’t. As a statistically minded individual, I see appraisals of players like Alcides Escobar and wonder. What exactly warrants this optimism? His career minor-league OPS is only .709! True, his 2008 and 2009 campaigns were the strong ones and Escobar still has, supposedly, a high ceiling but he did nothing to show that preseason rookie of the year talk was warranted in 2010. He hit like Adam Everett and gave the Brewers not only negative oWAR last year but also negative dWAR! That is a big red flag from a guy that is supposed to be a slick defender. He hasn’t shown any power in the minors, but he has hit for average and stolen bases. However, he hasn’t taken many walks – so he profiles (at best) as something like Placido Polanco at the plate. At worst… well, what he did to (not for) the Brewers last year probably qualifies. Rumor has it he’ll hit leadoff for the Royals, so if you remember what guys like Andres Torres did for the Tigers you’ll get some idea of what we’re likely to see in KC next year. Sure, he could break out… I doubt it. So far in the Venezuelan league he’s got a .543 OPS. I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather be betting on Cale Iorg.

The asking price does not seem to have been as high, in the end, as we had thought. Although maybe it’s just a case of Dayton Moore valuing prospects more highly that the rest of the universe. We don’t have strictly comparable players, but this package doesn’t seem to be much stronger than one of Gustavo Nunez, Casper Wells, Andrew Oliver and Daniel Schlereth from my perspective – if it is, in fact, stronger at all. That deal, I would have made.  (Though I wouldn’t have taken Betancourt.)

Kansas City is, obviously, a team with many flaws. They do need quantity over quality, within reason. I can’t really be against the idea of the trade on those grounds. I’ve made the connection a few times already between the 2011 Royals and the 2003 Tigers, and I’ll do it one more time here. The biggest thing that set us up for that miserable season (aside from a lot of risky prospects that didn’t pan out) was the Jeff Weaver trade. We got Bonderman, we got German and we got Carlos Pena. Obviously, we can see in retrospect that Jeff Weaver was not half the pitcher Zack Greinke is now – but back then a lot of us thought he was. At the time, that was a megadeal involving a young Cy-Young caliber pitcher. I can’t complain about our haul, either. Weaver fell apart, and Bonderman and Pena have had somewhat successful major league careers. Still they didn’t contribute immediately, and they never quite fulfilled the high ceilings we might have hoped. This is a deal a bit like that. Our German walked a batter an inning in 2003, but we still let him throw 44 2/3 (and give us -0.8 WAR). Maybe their German will work out better… Our Bonderman was rushed to the majors and – even though he was arguably our best starter – gave us -1.1 WAR on 2003. Maybe their Bonderman will work out better…  Our Pena wasn’t horrible in 2003, with a .772 OPS and (barely) positive WAR – but we expected better from a first baseman who was once BAs #5 prospect in all of baseball.  Maybe their Pena(s) will work out better…

I wouldn’t bet on it, though.  There is the distinct possibility that not only will the Royals fans miss that celebratory Greinke Day once a week, these four players will be downgrades at their positions for KC relative to what they got from those positions last year.  KC could lose 100, or more.  Sure, they’ve got Butler – but I’d be surprised if he hit better than Dmitri Young did along the way to 119 losses.