Stupid trade consumated...

One of the owners who's new to our fantasy baseball league this year has been crabbing and moaning about the lack of trades in our league. And, I'll admit, there have been paltry few trades this year because of various factors - the most likely being that the miserable website - Fanball.com - that we've chosen to go with this year doesn't allow easy evaluation of trades. In past years, you were able to view the trades players side by side and see if the whole thing was worth your time or not.

Well, as commissioner of the league, I sometimes feel that it's my duty to keep the new kids happy. So I told him to offer me a resonable trade for my second-to-last place team. Here's what he offers up Mark Mulder, Raffy Palmeiro, and Shawn Green in return for my trio of Carlos Beltran, Eddie Guardado, and Jake Westbrook. I took it...maybe stupidly, but I took it...

The very next morning, I see the lovely headlines that Raffy has been suspended for ten days for violating the league's steroid policy. Doh! Nice timing, boys, nice timing. Looks like th Flaming Moes - my team - will be putting their new aquistition on the bench for a while.

By the way, if you wanted to check our Raffy's side of the story, here's his statement.

I really don't know what to think about the Raffy situation. He got his 3000th hit recently, and there has been a spate of news stories and articles online about whether Palmeiro was Hall of Fame worthy or not. After a lot of reading and consideration, I'd come to the conclusion that his long career of seasons with pretty high value just happened to come at a time when there is one of the great positional gluts at first base with Frank Thomas, Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell, and others who sort of overshadowed Raffy's time. That Raffy deserved to go into the HoF because of his excellence for such a long time. But it was a close decision, because I've never viewed him as anything other than a pretty good hitter who happened to be a fantasy study because he played in some hitters parks. But this just might change things. After seeing him testify very vehemently before Congress that he had never taken any steroids, period, and now having seen this new suspension, I just don't know. My feeling is that he perjured himself and that he's going to need to bear the brunt of the steroid-fueled anger in baseball.

Good luck, Raffy...hope the mustache and the viagra help...