Ouch
Kansas City Royals – Acquired Nothing from the Seattle Mariners for P Daniel Cortes, P Derrick Saito, and the right to not have IF Yuniesky Betancourt on the team.
The Royals clearly overpaid here. 28 other teams have also acquired the rights to not have Yuniesky Betancourt play for the teams and none of them had to give up any prospects. Betancourt will continue to not field or not hit for the Royals and push the team into having a de facto 24-man roster. If the Royals wanted to continue to recall positive aspects of the 80s, a process they started with the return of powder blue in the alternate jerseys, they should’ve signed Kurt Stillwell, who is probably a better player right now.
And I think it remains true even given the lack of alternatives on the current roster.
Mariner fans can take solace of being on the other end of these trades in the post-Bavasi era, anyway. Mets fans can at least take solace in the fact that they didn’t quite make the worst trade of the day.