Daily download: Royals made an error trading for shortstop

This is discouraging. It really is. The Royals traded prospects Danny Cortes and Derrick Saito for Mariners shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt. Folks, this is your new shortstop. Betancourt is currently rehabbing from a hamstring injury, but when he returns, he will almost certainly become KC’s regular at the most important defensive position on the field. Why is this such bad news? Well, Betancourt is 27, which means he is entering his offensive peak and should already be at his defensive peak. And, according to my system, he is the second-worst player in baseball this season. The core statistic in my baseball evaluation program is Wins-Added. It measures a player’s contributions in hitting, fielding and pitching, adjusts for context, compares to league and positional averages for a baseline and is expressed in terms of wins. Zero is average. The top player in baseball so far has been Tim Lincecum, the Giants’ ace taken a few picks after Luke Hochevar a couple of draft...