Royals Get Rid Of Yuniesky Betancourt

As far as I’m concerned, that’s the big news in the AL Central today. KC sent Yuniesky Betancourt, some starting pitcher and cash to the Milwaukee Brewers for prospects. Of course, that starting pitcher was Zack Greinke – but we’ve been assuming for a while that he’d be dumped, right? The big surprise, of course, is that someone took Betancourt off of their hands.

But, I’ll get back to Betancourt later. Now to most everyone (other than me) Zack Greinke is the big deal here, and fans around the country (including Detroit) will be a little disappointed that the one true Cy Young caliber pitcher still on the block didn’t wind up on their team. I will admit, Greinke wearing a D would have given the Tigers the rotation that they need to beat the Twins and the White Sox in 2011. Still, I didn’t have much hope that a deal could have been made that would not have crippled the Tigers in 2013. So my immediate reaction wasn’t surprise or disappointment.

Kansas City’s haul is as follows: Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress and Jake Odorizzi. Cain is a centerfielder, Escobar a shortstop, Jeffress a power reliever and Odorizzi a starter. All but Odorizzi are major-league ready and the three all saw some time with the Brewers in 2010. Odorizzi is not irrelevant, he was a supplemental pick in 2008 and chewed up A-ball in 2010 at the age of 20. He was a top-10 prospect in the Milwaukee organization even before the 2010 season, and he may well turn out to be the most important prospect involved – much like PTBNL Bonderman was the most important of the prospects the Tigers got for Jeff Weaver. Think of Odorizzi as the Bonderman of the deal. Still, he’s not ready to make an immediate impact so I’ll focus on the others.

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.