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Former Sox Minor League Daniel Cortes Traded to M's


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Royals Acquire Yuniesky Betancourt

By Ben Nicholson-Smith [July 10 at 2:17pm CST]

 

The Royals acquired Yuniesky Betancourt and cash from the Mariners for a pair of minor league pitchers, according to Joe Hamrahi of Baseball Daily Digest. Betancourt makes at least $10MM before his current deal expires, so it'll be interesting to see how much the Mariners are contributing.

 

Here's some info on the pitchers, from Ryan Divish of the Tacoma News Tribune. Danny Cortes, 22, will report to AA. He's 6-2 with a 3.12 ERA in his last eleven games after a rough start to the year in the Royals organization. He was the Royals' minor league pitcher of the year last year and Baseball America labelled him the best minor league pitcher in the organization entering this year.

 

Derrick Saito, 21, has struck out more than a batter per inning in A ball. The 21-year-old lefty will begin his Mariners career in A ball.

 

Cortes was made expendable due to an arrest last week in Arkansas...

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QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 02:46 PM)
Good GOD that is a s*** deal for Kansas City! They gave up an asset for someone who sucks and is owed too much money? Yeah Seattle is going to pay some, but how much does it cost to sign an Adam Everett or Cesar Izturis every year? Wow, if Kenny made that deal he'd be roasted here. Attaboy, Dayton Moore!

 

Three words: Tony Pena, Junior.

 

 

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 02:48 PM)
What did he do that was so bad he was no longer worth anything more than Yuniesky Betancourt?

He got arrested for being drunk in public and urinating. After a game.

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QUOTE (High Mileage @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 02:52 PM)
Three words: Tony Pena, Junior.

 

 

 

He got arrested for being drunk in public and urinating. After a game.

Did you guys ever give anything up for Pena though? Can't remember. I know he was a guy who was not going anywhere with the Braves and never went anywhere with the Royals either.

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There's a lot of concern Teahen will be traded, that Aviles will never be the same player he was last year and that Pena will NEVER hit.

 

I remember the Royals making a desperate move for Rey Sanchez when they had the same problem almost a decade ago....and then, of course, Berroa never solidified that position after the great rookie year.

 

Wasn't Cortes listed by many publications as a Top 45-60 prospect in all of the minors not so long ago?

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QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 03:45 PM)
There's a lot of concern Teahen will be traded, that Aviles will never be the same player he was last year and that Pena will NEVER hit.

 

I remember the Royals making a desperate move for Rey Sanchez when they had the same problem almost a decade ago....and then, of course, Berroa never solidified that position after the great rookie year.

 

Wasn't Cortes listed by many publications as a Top 45-60 prospect in all of the minors not so long ago?

Cortes was a nice prospect and they dumped him for garbage. I see no reason whatsoever for this move. If Zduriencik tried to do this on a PS3 it wouldn't let him.

 

BTW even if the M's are eating the whole contract it's still a bad deal. That's a sunk cost. If I were trading for Betancourt - and I wouldn't because I'd want more even out of a bench player - but if I were, I'd *expect* to have that contract eaten and I wouldn't give up anything better than Kroeger in the process. Royals fans should be preparing an effigy of their GM right now. There's no excuse for making a move that bad.

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QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 03:17 PM)
Did you guys ever give anything up for Pena though? Can't remember. I know he was a guy who was not going anywhere with the Braves and never went anywhere with the Royals either.

Erik Cordier. He was coming off Tommy John Surgery when he was dealt. He's in A-ball with the Braves now.

 

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 03:45 PM)
There's a lot of concern Teahen will be traded, that Aviles will never be the same player he was last year and that Pena will NEVER hit.

 

I remember the Royals making a desperate move for Rey Sanchez when they had the same problem almost a decade ago....and then, of course, Berroa never solidified that position after the great rookie year.

 

Wasn't Cortes listed by many publications as a Top 45-60 prospect in all of the minors not so long ago?

Only the feeble fans are "concerned" that Teahen will be traded. I'd like to keep him, and I'd love to keep him if we could dump Jose Guillen. I won't be heartbroken if Teahen is traded. Aviles hopes to be back by Spring Training, but I agree there is concern that he won't be the same player he was last year. That concern was there before this season anyways.

 

Cortes was our top pitching prospect coming into the season, our Minor League Pitcher of the Year last year, but was no better than our 4th or 5th best pitching prospect at this point.

 

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 04:04 PM)
Cortes was a nice prospect and they dumped him for garbage. I see no reason whatsoever for this move. If Zduriencik tried to do this on a PS3 it wouldn't let him.

Tony Pena, Jr. is reason enough for this move. It could be a completely terrible trade in the end, but if it means no more TPJ, then it was well worth it.

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QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 02:46 PM)
Good GOD that is a s*** deal for Kansas City! They gave up an asset for someone who sucks and is owed too much money? Yeah Seattle is going to pay some, but how much does it cost to sign an Adam Everett or Cesar Izturis every year? Wow, if Kenny made that deal he'd be roasted here. Attaboy, Dayton Moore!

Daniel Cortes is repeating AA with mediocre numbers. It's hard to call him much of an asset. You are way off your rocker to be up in arms over this move.

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QUOTE (danman31 @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 04:24 PM)
Daniel Cortes is repeating AA with mediocre numbers. It's hard to call him much of an asset. You are way off your rocker to be up in arms over this move.

Cortes is a 22-year-old power arm with a successful minor league career. The only bad part about his numbers are his BB totals going up which hurts his K rate and WHIP. Yeah, I'll take that over a 27-year-old mediocre-at-best defensive SS with a career line of .279/.302/.393 who has been on a steady decline since 2007. If Betancourt didn't have the contract he's got he probably wouldn't have even been in the big leagues. He can't steal a base worth a s***, so no value there. The only thing he does is make a ton of weak contact.

 

And this bit is entertaining:

Let's get back to Betancourt's defense, which I'm sure is going to be praised in the team's quotes about this deal that will emerge later. My poor rating for his glovework is based upon the revised zone-rating statistics available at The Hardball Times. Betancourt's is the worst of any shortstop in the AL -- and it isn't even close. That may very well be due to the hamstring issue because he's generally around .800 in RZR, versus the .720 he's put up this year. But .800 is only an average RZR and paired with his horrific batting line, the end result is a losing ballplayer.

 

I heard he was bad, but wow.

 

BTW I'm not upset about this deal because it makes the Sox better by making the Royals worse. I'm just shocked it went down. It really is horrible.

 

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QUOTE (JDsDirtySox @ Jul 10, 2009 -> 04:29 PM)
Yeah... after looking at Cortes' numbers from this year... he has pretty much made himself a non-prospect.

You're kidding right?

 

Since when do teams completely give up on healthy, 22-year-old pitchers with scouting reports like this?

His fastball regularly registers in the 92-95 MPH range, while touching 96 or 97 on occasion when he needs it. The curveball is sharp and registers in the high-70's, and it is a legitimate strikeout pitch for him. Cortes still needs to continue to develop his changeup a little more as a weapon against left-handed hitters, but it is coming around. There is occasional feel for the pitch and every so often you can see that good changeup, it's just not consistent enough yet.

His walk rate went way up, and maybe he's got a s***ty attitude to go with it, but for Betancourt? That's still horrible.

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Looks like Cortes' prospect status really took a hit this year with a mediocre season and his arrest. Still doesn't make sense to trade him for Yuniesky Betancourt. I'd rather stick it out with Tony Pena as while he might be even worse defensively, he's still a very good defensive player at least. Yuniesky is average at best on D.

 

It looks more and more like Moore was just a hyped up product from an incredible Braves system.

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QUOTE (danman31 @ Jul 11, 2009 -> 02:36 AM)
The upside of Cortes is a setup man and the odds of that seem lower than they did. I don't think he's worth getting up in arms.

You seem to underestimate just how bad of a baseball player Betancourt is. Fangraphs has his value as -3.6 million dollars. He’s the worst fielder in all of baseball and arguably the worst everyday player as well. This was a genius salary dump by the Mariners and they got some nice arms too.

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