Mariners deal Betancourt to Royals Seattle acquires pair of prospects in excange for shortstop
By Jim Street / MLB.com
07/10/09 3:18 PM ET
SEATTLE -- The Mariners have traded shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt to the Royals for Minor League pitchers Danny Cortes and Derrick Saito.
The 27-year-old Betancourt, signed as a non-drafted free agent in January 2005 after he fled Cuba, currently is on a rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Tacoma. He suffered a strained hamstring more than two weeks ago.
At the time, he was batting .250 with 10 doubles, two home runs and 22 RBIs for the Mariners.
Overall, he played in 588 games, batted .279 with 123 doubles, 27 home runs and 202 RBIs. He had 186 strikeouts and 70 walks during his stint with Seattle.
"The opportunity presented itself for us to acquire a pair of talented arms and as we move forward we felt this was the right thing to do at this time," general manager Jack Zduriencik said. "We want to thank Yuni for all he has done for the Mariners and wish him the best of luck in Kansas City."
Cortes will report to Double-A West Tennessee while Saito joins the Mariners' Class-A farm club in Clinton, Iowa.
Cortes, 22, was the Royals Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2008 and was rated as the Royals' top pitching prospect entering the '09 season by Baseball America. The publication also rated the right-hander as the second-best prospect in the Royals system, as well as naming him as the owner of the system's best fastball and curveball.
He posted a 6-2 record in his past 11 outings (10 starts) after losing his first four decisions.
The 6-foot-6, 216-pound right-hander from Pomana, Calif., and was originally drafted by the White Sox in the seventh round of the First-Year Player Draft in 2005. He was traded to the Royals on July 24, 2006.
The 21-year-old Saito, a left-hander, had a 2-6 record, 4.26 ERA and one save for Class-A Burlington this season. He also started the season slowly, surrendering eight earned runs in his first four outings but just 16 runs over his past 42 1/2 3 innings.
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.
Looks like a great trade for the Mariners. Danny Cortes is a decent prospect and him alone would be more than enough for Yuniesky, but the Mariners also get another prospect in the trade. Betancourt isn't very good and he isn't exactly cheap either, $3M next year, $4M in 2011 and $6M in 2012.
GiantsFan14 wrote:is there a worse run franchise in all of sports than the royals?
It depends on if Tony Pena Jr still gets ABs after Betancourt is through with his rehab.
Cortes would probably have been the 5th or 6th best pitching prospect going into next season for the Royals. Trading him really isn't all that big a deal and chances are he will never be a ML starter but might find his way into a bullpen as a MR within the next year or so if he can find a way past all his recent injury problems.
Obviously for most Royals fans isn't so much what they gave up, but what they got in return. Pretty much anything is an upgrade from Pena at the plate or Bloomquist in the field but Betancourt is a worrying because it is starting to be a trend for the type of players Moore is accumulating. Not a very good fielder and very subpar OBP. Simply being slightly better than All-Time awful isn't the way to go.
The Royals are not going to going to be able to sign any stud free agent position players so in order to get those types of players into the lineup it is going to have to come from the draft and development. That is where Moore is going to make it or break it with this franchise and so far he has done a very good job of rebuilding the farm system. The problem is that he keeps getting these "fill-in" type players and blocking the very prospects (Bianchi in this case) that are going to have to be the lifeblood of the team.
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by kimchi_chigae » Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:49 pm 
Second mystifying trade of the day. What do the Royals see in Betancourt?
