FanHouse Mat Gamel

So you thought that once Matt Holliday went to St. Louis and Cliff Lee wound up with the Phillies deadline day itself would be anticlimactic? Hardly.

Three All-Stars, including a former Rookie of the Year and Cy Young, went elsewhere on July 31, and all that happened while the biggest name on the market all month, Roy Halladay, stayed put.

No, this deadline did not disappoint. There was a flurry of activity right down to 4 PM ET and a legitimate shocker to finish it all off. What better way to wrap up all of the intrigue then with a look at the early winners and losers? Join me -- and a few other members of the MLB FanHouse crew -- as we break it all down after the jump.

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Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

Big Apple, we have a problem. And one that could be a major concern in fantasy baseball leagues, too.

Jose Reyes, undoubtedly a top-10 fantasy pick, left Wednesday's game against the Dodgers after aggravating a right calf injury while trying to leg out an infield single. Reyes had missed five straight starts with the injury, and it looks like a trip to the disabled list is a possibility at some point. The Mets can consider alternatives to watching Ramon Martinez twirl his toothpick bat -- like the versatile Mark DeRosa -- but the solution isn't so simple for fantasy owners relying on his speed.

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While it's entirely possible the Blue Jays do hit a snag, isn't it about time columnists across the internet stopped doing Can the Blue Jays Really Keep This Up? pieces by now? I've seen at least 10 in the past three weeks. There are almost as many The Rangers Are For Real posts. The discrepancy in the media's faith in those two is likely due to the divisions in which the teams reside, but seven weeks isn't a small sample. At some point, you have to start giving credit where it's due.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

It was only a matter of time. As much as people want to talk about the New York pressure and how you can't continue to look at his career's worth of slow-starting seasons, all we had to do was be patient and wait for the inevitable stat correction when it came to Mark Teixeira. Now, we're right in the middle of it. In his last six games, Teixeira is hitting .458 with 3 home runs, 11 RBI and a 1.458 OPS. Low and behold, he's on pace for 42 bombs and 119 RBI.

The 26-year-old Rickie Weeks looked to be finally fulfilling the promise of his lofty draft spot (second pick overall in the 2003 draft). He was hitting .272 with 9 home runs, 24 RBI, 2 stolen bases and 28 runs. Now, what appeared to be his breakout campaign has been summarily dismantled on one swing. Weeks tore up his wrist on a swing Sunday and his season is over.

There's no rest for the weary in fantasy baseball, though. Weeks owners must lick their wounds and find a way to recover. A recovery should be possible, considering how little owners probably had to spend on Weeks in their auctions or drafts. The three options are as follows (make sure to check out number three).

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Bad news coming out of Milwaukee this evening, as the Brewers have recently learned that they're going to lose second baseman Rickie Weeks for the remainder of the 2009 season. Weeks tore the tendon sheath in his left wrist on Sunday and the injury will require surgery that will keep Weeks out at least four months. It's the same injury weeks suffered in his right wrist in 2006 that ended that season and caused him trouble into 2007.

It's almost unspeakable bad luck for Weeks, as he was off to a great start in 2009 and seemed to finally be fully healthy and ready to live up to the expectations that the Brewers placed on him years ago. Through 37 games, Weeks was hitting .272/.340/.517 with nine homers (his career high is 16) and even made Snyder's early All-Star ballot last week. He's still only 26, but to suffer another injury like this is devastating.

For those of you who keep up with minor league prospects, you'll know the significance of the Brewers promotion of Mat Gamel yesterday. If his name is unfamiliar to you, familiarize yourself with one of the top 100 prospects (Baseball America #34, MLB #23 & Baseball Prospectus #58) in all of baseball.

Through 33 games (119 at-bats) Gamel is batting .336/.428/.647 for the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. He also has 11 doubles and eight home runs. This kid can really mash the ball and he's been doing it his whole career.

Since being selected in the fourth round of the 2005 First-Year Player Draft, Gamel has never hit below .288 for a season and has a career minor league batting average of .308. Last season he hit 20 home runs and 35 doubles while driving in 99. So, as you can see, Mat Gamel can hit the ball.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

Remember when Rickie Weeks was a hot new prospect whose quick bat drew comparisons to Gary Sheffield? Yeah, turns out that was four years ago.

Following season after season of frustration for hopeful fantasy owners, Weeks is finally coming through. The speed isn't there, but he's homered in three straight games to give him nine total in only 140 at-bats. By comparison, he only hit 14 in 475 at-bats last year. So has our man-crush of yesteryear suddenly transformed into the new Dan Uggla, or is this impressive power display just another tease?

As we've now witnessed a touch over a month of minor league baseball, it's worth it in many fantasy leagues to look ahead at who may be making a visit to the majors sometime this season. Remember, Ryan Braun, for example, wasn't yet in the major leagues at this point in his rookie season. This isn't to say that all of these guys -- or any -- will have that sort of an impact in the majors this year.

We're just giving a quick, non-comprehensive list of players who are playing relatively well in the minors this year and/or who have a chance to make a fantasy impact at some point. We'll start with the big names, but it won't be limited to just them. Dynasty league players should be paying the most attention.

FanHouse continues it 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Brewers are a really interesting team. Last March, everyone expected them to make a run at the playoffs, and they expected them to do so without any knowledge of the CC Sabathia trade and with the assumption that Ben Sheets would spend some time on the disabled list. In the end, they did make the playoffs, but they did it with half of a season of Sabathia and almost 200 innings from Sheets. Now those two are gone, and everyone expects the Brewers to take a step back this year.