On Tuesday’s Roundtable show, we welcomed one of the few female voices in the sports/fantasy blogging community. Sooze from Babes Love Baseball joined us for a passionate show of some good old-fashioned debate. We discussed a variety of topics including some follow-up talk on the trade deadline deals and what the heck is going on in the Mets bullpen.

We began the show with yet another take on the impact that the Dodgers/Red Sox/Pirates trade would have on Manny Ramirez and Jason Bay’s fantasy value. There was a general consensus that the Dodgers would obviously be better this year with the addition of Manny. However, Patrick and I questioned the move from a long-term perspective as Ned Colletti gave up a top prospect in Andy LaRoche for basically 2 months of a player in clear decline who can’t play defense. We also generally agreed that the addition of Bay and subtraction of Manny for the Red Sox would be a net positive. Although it was difficult to convince the panel (with the exception of Pat who agreed), I argued that when you take a look at all the components, such as current season performance, park factors, defense, base running, contract status and clubhouse presence, Jason Bay should actually contribute more wins than Manny and might even outperform him offensively for the rest of the season.

Next up, we segued into the winners and losers of the trade deadline. It was a unanimous agreement that the Rays were big losers as they appear to be just one big bat away from being serious contenders for the World Series. And as we all know, they did nothing. For winners, we also agreed that the Yankees did a nice job, as they plugged a bunch of holes with solid players, although no one impact player. Pudge Rodriguez, Damaso Marte, and Xavier Nady are all nice upgrades to what their in-house alternatives were at the time.

We then moved onto the mess that is the Mets bullpen. Eric and Jay felt that Eddie Kunz should be given a shot based on his top prospect status and the idea that the Mets have nothing to lose trying him in the role. Of course the Mets do have something to lose by trying a rookie in the closer’s role- the entire division and a playoff berth! Although I made a fool of myself by admitting I really never heard of Kunz, he has only pitched 60 professional innings and exhibited below average control in the minors this year. There is no way he’s ready to succeed as the closer, and might not even be ready to pitch at the MLB-level in any role. I believe that Joe Smith could do a decent job as the closer and has the best skill set among the Mets relievers. 

Last we discussed the Ken Griffey, Jr. acquisition by the White Sox and all of us were baffled at the move. Besides the fact that Junior is sporting just a .787 OPS, the White Sox have decided to ignore that Griffey can’t play defense anymore and have made him their CFer. Since this move would result in reduced playing time for Paul Konerko and Nick Swisher, who Griffey shouldn’t be expected to outproduce, I just don’t see how this improves their team whatsoever. Now granted, they didn’t give up much, but there’s no obvious upgrade here and Javier Vazquez and Gavin Floyd certainly can’t be happy now that more of their myriad of fly balls start falling for hits.

In a landmark event, I finally stood under the spotlight as I posited the Are You Crazy? question for the first time. I claimed that Clay Buchholz would be a top 20 fantasy starting pitcher in 2009. Unfortunately, my contention had the most agreement in the history of the show. I say unfortunately because I was hoping for some spirited debate, but alas, that didn’t happen. Eric and Jay both opined that it certainly wasn’t out of the question, but not something to expect. Patrick believed there was actually a much better shot of this occurring than anyone realizes.

As always, we ended the show with our popular and fun tee-off segment, where you get to hear us rant and rave about anything on our minds. You’re just going to have to listen if you want to know exactly what we said this week! So take a break from your job and head on over to the left side bar where the radio player is conveniently located, and then of course join us next week at our new time of 10:30 as we make our debut on BlogTalkRadio’s new Fantasy Channel.

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.