Kansas City Royals

My reaction to yesterday's Yuniesky Betancourt trade was pretty similar to the reaction most people had.

"Wow, Dayton Moore is a terrible GM. Thank God I'm not a Royals fan."

There are just so many things wrong with the trade.

The first error in judgment, the one most often pointed out by others, is that Betancourt is a bad player offensively and defensively. He's just another bad shortstop to add to Willie Bloomquist and Tony Pena Jr. While he may be an upgrade, he's certainly not a starter. He may not even be a big-league-caliber player at this point.

As many of you probably know, the Royals traded two minor league pitchers for Seattle shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt.

The Royals did have to give up Double-A pitcher Daniel Cortes, who has been tagged by some scouts as the best pitcher in the Royals' farm system. They also gave up Single-A reliever Derrick Saito.

I have talked to some Mariners fans, and they say this is a major win for Seattle. I beg to differ.

Last night, an "organizational decision" was made to pull Yuniesky Betancourt from the game in Tacoma.

In other words, the move wasn't injury-related, meaning Yuni had been traded but the M's couldn't say that officially yet. The move that seemed imminent last night was finally announced. Now, officially, Yuni is going to the Kansas City Royals for pitching prospects Dan Cortes and Derrick Saito.

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports says that the Kansas City Royals "do not seem terribly inclined" to deal away Mark Teahen.

Now, I being a huge Royals fan am kind of split on this subject. I like Mark Teahen; he might be my favorite Royals player. But he's not an All-Star and most likely won't be.

When the No. 1 pick of the MLB draft is selected, he is expected to be a star.

Some picks are met with more fanfare than others (Stephen Strasburg elicited much more buzz than Matt Bush) but all No. 1 draft picks are expected to, at the very least, be good contributors to their major league teams.

And usually, they are.

It's June 27, and the major league trade deadline is drawing near.

As always, there are many teams out there looking for offense. The Mets, Rays, Blue Jays, and others are looking for a quality bat to further their playoff chances.

Earlier this week, the Lakers NBA Championship moved me to put together a system to rank the best teams of the 2000s decade. While creating a list of the best, I also came up with a list of the worst.

For reasoning behind my methodology, see my article on the Top 10 Teams of the Decade (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/205182-the-top-10-teams-of-the-decade...).

Here is a quick recap of how the scoring works.

A team loses one point for every year they finished below .500 in the MLB, NFL and NBA, and for each non-playoff team in the NHL since there is not really a .500 mark.

In part two of my series of struggling franchises trying to find their way back to the top, I will look into the Kansas City Royals.

Unlike Baltimore, the Royals have had a .500 season (83-79 in 2003) within the last decade. The drawback, though, are the four seasons of 100+ losses (2002, 2004-2006).  Fortunately for Royals fans, Kansas City did not have a fourth-straight 100+ loss season in 2007. 

Kansas City entered the 2009 season with high hopes.

Despite his recent hot streat, rumors have been swirling about the Red Sox' desire to replace David Ortiz.

JJ Hardy, Jeff Francouer, Hanley Ramirez and Adam Dunn's names have been tossed around, but one name that's less famous is Chris Davis. Davis has been knocking the stuffing out of the ball in 59 games.