"This move solidifies the Royals as a win-now franchise. However, from here, it just doesn’t look like they have a good enough team to actually win now. If the 2013 Royals follow the 2008 Mariners path to self destruction, this might be the last roster Dayton Moore ever gets to build.
If you’re wondering about this trade from the Rays perspective, they’re now a little worse than they were before this trade, but their winter isn’t over. They’ll replace Shields and Davis with worse pitchers, but they’re also freeing up roughly $10 million in salary, so if they reallocate that money to buy a +2 win player elsewhere — they still have a glaring hole at DH — then they very well might end up about as good overall as they would have been had they kept Shields. And, of course, they now control Myers rights for the next six years, and they have Odorizzi to maintain their pitching depth, and they got a couple of potential long term assets in Montgomery and Leonard for their trouble. This is just another terrific move by the Rays, pushing their present talent marginally down in order to provide a huge long term boost and keep the team flush with premium young talent.
Even though their team got worse in the present, Rays fans have to be thrilled with this trade. And even though their club got better in the present, Royals fans should be in mourning, because even after this exchange, the Rays are still the team with a better chance of contending in 2013, and now they’ve cemented a brighter future for themselves as well."
Just a bit of Dave Cameron's writeup that people should read.