Wow, what a weird trade. The Royals have acquired shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt from the Mariners for pitching prospects Dan Cortes and Derrick Saito. Cortes, who originally came to the Royals in the Mike MacDougal deal, looked like a pretty good starting prospect until this year and still is young enough to get it together. Saito is a lottery-ticket lefty reliever from the low minors who has posted good numbers so far. Betancourt is a terrible defensive player and he's almost as bad as a hitter; he's an awful imitation of a starting shortstop. Acquiring him is just about the only way to try and fail to improve the Willie Bloomquist / Tony Pena / Luis Hernandez mess the Royals have played at short recently. Terrible trade for Kansas City.