Drayer: Yuni to KC for minor leaguers
DMZ · July 10, 2009 at 12:16 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Two pitchers — Derrick Saito, command lefty
Dan Cortes, big right hander who walks dudes
If the M’s aren’t picking up Yuni’s salary, our front office deserves end-of-year awards.
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“Now KC can have a Yuni-Bloomie DP combo. Let the good times roll.”
Yes, and Mariners fans will be looking on with jealous envy for the next several years.
The Mariner … uh… dream DP combo. What could have been. Sigh.
Yuni’s value has been below replacement level – that is, with a bit of work to find a non-Cedeñoesque replacement the Mariners could have released Yuni and improved the team while continuing to be on the hook for virtually all of Yuni’s remaining salary.
Instead not only are the Mariners not on the hook for some part of his salary, they also got back at least one player who has some MLB potential.
I don’t see how this is anything other than another great move. We would have been happy just seeing Yuni go away. Now he’s gone and the team gets value back as well.
wish i could trade my girlfriend for two prospects. once in love, but no more. good move.
re: earlier comments
When I posted that link to Cortes’ law run-in, I wasn’t being all that serious about it, just making fun of the phenomenon.
You may remember a few years back when a few Mariners farmhands got in trouble for wrecking some cars. As it turned out, it was just a Midwest League tradition for players to buy beaters and crash them together at the end of the season, obsolescence made fun, if you will, but the police were not aware of what was going on and ended up making a mess of things.
I realize Sanchez is a better hitter, but we really need Wilson more. Imagine a guy who hits a little better than Yuni…and fields a lot better. Even if he is already in his early 30’s, we need someone to play there for a couple of years until someone else emerges.
There is one downside to this trade that many people have not considered.
What will become of the Bizarro Yuniesky Betancourt Fan Club?
It gets suspended in Bizzaro World purgatory, duh!
I feel sorry for the fans over at the Royals message boards. They have no idea what they are getting, talking about Yuni’s excellent defense and such.
As a longtime Royals fan (OK, OK, get it out of your system, but at least they’ve got a World Series Trophy in their case…albeit from when I was still in high school,) I see this as good for Seattle, and not likely to drag KC down any further than they already are…and if Yuni can
keep from injuring his new teammateswake up and smell the reality of his situation, it might turn out pretty good for them…BTW, for a chuckle, take a look at this How to be a Royals Fan guide.
Poor bastards in KC.
Farewell, so long, I hope that you take this as an opportunity that all of us here would love to have had Mr. Betancourt. Good luck, Good Bye.
In Z we trust. I have never wanted a GM’s autograph before but I sure want his. Thank You.
At least one KC sportswriter isn’t amused…Quote from Idahowriter’s link above:
Cortes urinated in public while intoxicated. He’ll fit right in when he walks over to Pioneer Square after home games.
In Z we trust. I have never wanted a GM’s autograph before but I sure want his. Thank You.
deals like this make me happy i got him to sign a ball at fanfest. Thank you jack z!
I think that being a Royals fan takes its toll on the weak-minded. The Royals, having a black hole at shortstop, went out and acquired the starting shortstop for a team that had an equally large problem at shortstop. And many fans see this as a great step forward for the team.
I’m guessing that many of these are the same Royals fans who took issue with Dave’s organizational ranking of the Royals at Fangraphs this spring.
If the Royals wanted to get the 2007 Mariners squad back together so badly, why don’t they just hire Bill Bavasi and save themselves some trouble?
The Mariners have agreed to pay some portion of Yuni’s salary going forward.
If the Royals got Jack to pay Yuni’s entire salary, the deal looks better for them. If Jack got away with paying none of Yuni’s salary, the deal looks better for us.
Given the two players received in return, where’s breakeven?
Getting rid of Yuni is awesome … it’s something the Bavasi regime never would have done.
I have 100% confidence in this FO and it’s SO nice for change!
Breakeven is simply getting rid of Betancourt and eating the salary owed him. That move by itself would have made the team better. Getting anything at all in return swings the deal positive for the Mariners. Getting something back and not being responsible for any portions of Betancourt’s salary is yet further in the Mariners favor.
There is an additional point to make here: this is a message to Jose Lopez. No one is here to protect you other than your own performance on the field. Unless you’d like to play for the Nats or Pirates.
Maybe Dayton Moore is smarter than I give him credit for. As suggested by a commenter at fangraphs, maybe the Royals have decided to make a serious run for the right to draft Bryce Harper next year.
Yuni is owed $13M for the next three years ($3M, $4M, and $6M). Is it plausible that we’re still paying most of that? Or does ‘cash considerations’ usually mean less than that?
Playing Yuni and WFB certainly can’t hurt KC’s chances of landing Harper. Do they need Woodward or Corcoran?
This from a KC sports site. I think he cribbed from posts on Yuny from USS Mariner.
OK, refresh my memory here. Wasn’t there a post recently showing how bad Yuni was even compared to replacement level? So how many wins does plugging Wilson or some other random player, even from Tacoma, into Yuni’s roster spot get us?
Try this again:
If the Royals got Jack to pay Yuni’s entire salary, the deal looks better for them
Better in the sense that it’s better than if they were paying all of Yuni’s salary, yes.
Better in the sense of ‘good’, no. Yuni has been below replacement level this year. Releasing him and eating the entire future value of his contract would have improved the team. Instead, Zduriencik got two might-have-a-future minor league arms and, reportedly, some of the money back, too. That’s not just advantage->Seattle, that’s pure win. There’s no way in which this is anything other than a coup.
Meh I think you’re allowed to pee on a fence if you get stabbed 8 times saving a co-worker from gang members
From a KC perspective:
http://uponfurtherreview.kansascity.com/?q=node/1226
I think we can tell the gentleman from Kansas City that Yuni’s defense was not affected by his hamstring issue. That’s just Yuni.
Heh. Rob Neyer weighs in.
(I particularly liked “Betancourt does not reach base with any frequency, nor does he reach ground balls with any frequency.”)
Wasn’t 100% of that money already spent anyway?
True, but I was pointing out this isn’t diamonds for crap, its diamonds for crap and money. Still a big win for Z and the M’s, but not the Fleecing Of The Century.
Given the two players received in return, where’s breakeven?
If the SS position has an average UZR higher than Betancourt over the next 2.5 seasons, it’s a win. If Cortes gets his act together and gets some quality MLB service time, it’s a win. If the millions the M’s will save on Yuni’s contract go towards taking a flier on another Branyan-type performance, it’s a win.
IOW, there are many ways this deal is a win for the M’s, and there are only a couple of ways this could be a win for the Royals, all of which involve Yuni not being an underwhelming fielder or impatient hitter. But most importantly, Yuni is no longer going to be injuring M’s in the field or airmailing the ball into the luxury suites. And that’s already a win.
Great…the M’s finally manage to dump Yuni, and they wind up getting the guy who used to do those goofy Burger King ads…
Oh, wait…that was Dan Cortese.
That last year ($6M in ’12) has a $2M buyout: unless Yuni turns himself into another player between now and then, they’re taking the buyout. And even if Yuni does transform back into the guy we thought he was when he debuted, or better, the M’s will take the buyout and leave the Royals on the hook for the rest (assuming the M’s are even paying any part of his salary at that point, of course).
In case you missed it, Shannon Drayer offers a nice analysis from her unique perspective on her blog
According to Fangraphs, his WAR sits at -.8 so far this year, which means some replacement level shortstop in that spot for the rest of the year should be worth almost a win.
Which brings us to the “break-even” question. That Fangraphs valuation offers one way to look at it. Going forward, assuming he was no better in the second half of this year than he was in the first, Yuni was going to cost the team $3.6M over and above the $1M in salary he would paid over the rest of the year (vs just dumping him and plugging in some league-minimum SS). Assuming he didn’t improve (or decline further) over the rest of his contract, that’s $7.2M worth of suck for each of ’10 and ’11, plus the $3.6M for the rest of this year, for $18M total loss resulting from his poor performance, even if he was playing for free. That’s what Zduriencik got the team out of, and even got something back in exchange.
So let’s take the worst case evaluation: both these prospects from KC blow their arms out or quit to go to culinary school or whatever, and the deal requires the M’s to pay all of Yuni’s $10M freight ($1M in ’09, $3M in ’10, $4M in ’11, and the $2M buy-out in ’12).
The team is still $8M ahead.
Now, the accountants out there are going to be pulling their hair out and screaming, because I’m comparing opportunity cost on one hand with real dollars on the other: it’s not like the team gets $8M back from the karma tree because Yuni’s not on the team. But the point is that somebody else is on the team playing SS, and even if’s just a replacement-level guy getting paid the league average, he’s not costing the team $8M in non-production that has to be made up somewhere else in the field and/or at the plate. And when you’re trying to build a team that wins divisions, that is very real and very much what the calculation is all about.
Oh, and meanwhile: that worst case scenario probably won’t happen. The M’s probably aren’t on the hook for the whole of the contract, and at least one of those prospects probably will provide some non-negative value to an M’s team in the future.
I can’t see any way to spin this deal where — for the M’s at least — it isn’t made entirely of win.