Ignoring the loss of dejesus, I agree with you. Gordon is better than podsednik. I think maier is a wash with ankiel. Betamite has been better than callaspo this year. Farnsworth is the only loss. I don’t buy that this team gets appreciably worse with the moves. Now losing dejesus will hurt, that is for sure.

If Guillen is going to play he should be in right so Kila can DH/1B w/ Butler. Would it kill Kendall to have more than one day off a month? I know I’m stuck with Yuni, but why wouldn’t we see Aviles at SS?

Simply put — these three players are arguably among the worst at their position in the entire major league and they lead the Royals in games played (along w Butler).

I’ve heard alot of talk about how we’re sacrificing the end of this year by playing the young guys and jettisoning veterans. On the contrary, I say. I think we’ll be better down the stretch since we have replaced these vets with equally or more talented options with something to prove.

It may not show up in the W/L because the pitching staff is still an atrocity. Everyday that Yuni, Guillen, and Kendall play pushes back our ability to work towards contention.

Yes, but improving upon the worst one in the majors with 13M and 2 prospects shouldn’t be that difficult. I bet even the much maligned willie bloomquist would be able to provide the same production as yuniesky betancourt everyday.

“Sorry Nick, don’t get the “love” from you (or others) on Chris Getz.”

Oh, it’s completely irrational. I admit it. I am not selling anyone on Chris Getz. You know how sometimes as a fan you just like a guy? Well I just like Chris Getz.

I remember at the time of the trade Rany was actualy pinned down by a caller to his phone-in when asked “who would you get in at SS at the present time”?

The best two he could come up with was a asian player from Alburquerque in the Dodgers system called Hu & Julio Hugo (?) who the Red Sox were desperate to shift!

Admittedly these two were both named as cheap stop gap measures but i dont think they would have worked out better than Yuni.

Rany has now gone on record as saying the Betancourt trade was/is a success for the Royals as i have mentioned before,so i am sure he would admit to being wrong about the above two players as well & SL is right,good shortstops are hard to find!

I would imagine that for $13m and two pitching prospects we could do better than the worst SS in the majors. Maybe I’m wrong.

My guess is that had Moore not made pre-season deals to try to get into contention, he might not have panicked into trading for Betancourt (prospects traded is not so much the issue as the money the Royals have to pay Yuni). On the other hand, Moore has reportedly been after Betancourt for years, so it might have happened anyway.

And yes, Betancourt is that horribly bad. He is closing in on 3000 career plate appearances with a line of .272/.295/.389 and declining. As a Royal he is hitting just .248/.273/.383 and playing inconsistent defense (at best).

Derick Saito hasn’t pitched in 2010 at all yet.

We go look for a SS that is cheap, but who? It would be like back in the Baird days when we get guys who just who horrible in their positions. SS is a hard position to fill. Boston is an ideal organization. They make a lot of right moves, but they are also the team to sign Julio Lugo to a 4 yr. 36M contract as a SS. They gave up on him. Yuni is not perfect, but he is not horribly bad with his salary and with the fact until 2010 we had no real SS prospects. If the answer was Jeff Bianchi, he’s always injured and would be too much of a risk only relying on him.