At least at the surface, it is the baseball equivalent of having your Hyundai break down and someone offer you the keys to a Bentley. Or being dumped by the frumpy girl and being asked out by Scarlett Johansson.

Aaron Guiel is that guy, placed on waivers by the last-place Royals on June 30, picked up six days later by the 26-time World Series champion Yankees.

"That's a good question and you can draw your own conclusions," Guiel says. "The Royals, with the exception of '03, they've had a bunch of losing seasons in a row. They've shuffled through guys and keep continuing to look for the right recipe.

"You're going to ask yourself why that continues to happen, when you see guys like myself and Kyle Snyder, two castoffs. It's very obvious the team didn't want either one of us. He goes to Boston and does well. I come here and I'm a backup guy that's hopefully important to the team."

"You can draw your own conclusions on why that is," he says, smiling, before explaining his conclusion. "There's obviously someone over there making wrong decisions."

In the Royals' defense, Guiel's situation is not quite as simple as it seems from the outside. He was placed on waivers to make room for starting pitcher Luke Hudson, and the way Hudson has pitched — 7-5 and a candidate for Royals pitcher of the year — it's tough to argue against that.

As for Guiel's mention of Snyder, it is true that the payroll-heavy Red Sox claimed Snyder off waivers from the Royals in June, but it's also true that Snyder has not proved himself since being selected seventh overall in the 1999 draft. He entered a start Wednesday against the White Sox with a 5.94 ERA.

Also, the Yankees picked up Guiel only after suffering severe injury problems, particularly to outfielders Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui. Guiel isn't exactly going Babe Ruth on us — .245 with six homers in 46 games and spent time with the Yankees' Class AAA team — and could become an afterthought in New York once Matsui returns, as early as this week.

"He just fit what we needed," says Yankees first base coach Tony Peña, who managed Guiel in Kansas City from 2002-04. "Their situation, they're trying to build around young guys. Whenever they have a young guy come up, they don't have room for veteran guys. When we acquired him, we needed an outfielder because we had a lot of injuries. He's a guy we thought could fit with us."

And Guiel didn't "fit" in Kansas City. He made his big-league debut in 2002, at the age of 30, and had his best year in 2003 when he hit .277 with 15 homers and 52 RBIs. He finished that season in a three-for-35 slump and things got worse from there as he lost most of 2004 to blurred vision in his left eye that required Lasik surgery.

The eye problem forced Guiel to prove himself in Omaha in 2005. He hit 30 homers with 95 RBIs in 128 games at Class AAA before taking a late season call-up and batting .294 in 33 games.

"I never really understood why he was in Omaha, even when he was with us," says Royals manager Buddy Bell. "It seemed to me he had quite a few tools that could really help us. It just depends on the situation. The situation here, out of spring training, Shane's 24, and even though he didn't have a great spring, you want to see what he can do.

Guiel's departure from Kansas City came after Allard Baird was fired as Royals general manager, but before current GM Dayton Moore could fully evaluate Guiel. Moore says his opinion on Guiel was largely formed by "listening to what our people had to say."

"It just came down to roster management," Moore says. "We had to make a decision to add Luke Hudson. At the time, we didn't think we could take a pitcher off based on where we were and the future needs and the state of where our rotation was and our bullpen was."

"It's no fault of the Royals," Guiel says. "But it's been a long time since they've won. It's really hard to have that goal when winning's out of your grasp. A lot of guys have a tendency to put their personal goals ahead of team goals. Over here? Team first.

"Guys in this locker room, they do everything responsibly. They know if they go and play too much golf in the morning, they're going to be tired in the game. If they're out late at night, they might not have as much left for the game and might not have as good a team and it hurts the team. There were guys on the other side, ‘Hey, it's Friday night we're going out.' Then they're playing Saturday and they weren't getting the job done."

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