Fantasy Showdown: Jay Bruce, Nate McClouth, or Curtis Granderson?

Pretty straight up question. Who would you rather own for the season and why?

Q: Jay Bruce, Curtis Granderson, or Nate McClouth for the rest of the year?

A: Wow, tough one here.

Honestly, I'd put Jay Bruce outside the top spot right now.  I'm very hesitant when it comes to picking up young hitting. Pitching is always ahead of hitting and he'll need time to adapt to new pitchers with much better stuff than he's ever seen.

Look at how Jeff Clement and Wladimir Balentien are doing in Seattle right now. These guys both raked in the minors and couldn't cut it immediately.

Bruce will likely help your team most after the All-Star break and if I have these three guys that I'm looking at, he makes me the most nervous. High reward proposition because he has the potential to be a stud, but a very high risk. Much riskier than the other two guys here.

Nate McClouth and Granderson are tougher.

I like McClouth a lot and he's really hot. In his last seven, he's over .440, although he is young and has only hit about .265 for his career. Expecting him to hit .320 all season is probably out there. I could see about .290 though without a doubt. He has 30-35 home-run potential and could knock in 90+ runs.

Where he falls in comparison with Granderson is in the speed category. He could steal 15 or so, but it won't help you win a category or a week with those numbers.

Granderson will likely hit about 20-25 home-runs and drive in around the 75-85 range for the season. If the Tigers offense gets really hot, those numbers could go up.

But you have to judge on what you see. He's been bad for the month, hitting only .216 and has really struggled against lefties, hitting only .167. Granderson broke out to .302 last year, but I feel he's likely in for another .275 type year.

If I had to rank them, I'd go McClouth 1, Bruce 2, Granderson 3. That's my gut feel right now.