KC Royals Have Little to Offer, Less to Gain as the Trade Deadline Nears

In light of the personnel moves of the past year, the trade deadline that is approaching is doing so ominously.   Since the end of the 2008 season, Dayton Moore has dealt the keys to what had been a solid bullpen and previously highly touted prospects and has Mike Jacobs, Yuniesky Betancourt, and an out-for-the-year Coco Crisp to show for it.  To exacerbate the trade inequities (all of whom were making entirely too much money to boot), the Royals also went out and signed Kyle Farnsworth and Juan Cruz to fairly sizable contracts in the hopes of replacing the arms they shipped off.  Of course, both of these players have struggled mightily when it mattered. If you want to cast the net of blame further into the past, the Royals are paying the worst everyday player in baseball according to FanGraphs WAR formula $12 million this season and next.  According to FanGraphs, he is worth negative $7.3 million, making for a nearly $20 million net loss.  This is, of cour...