Much has been made about the trade history of the Minnesota Fatboys, and their celebrity General Manager, Aaron Gleeman. The league’s founder, and the connector that brought this entire league together, many suspect that owners in the league have been so happy to simply deal with the legendary owner, that they’ve conceded far more in trade negotiations than they would if they were dealing with the other GMs in the league.
It’s time to separate fact from fiction. We’ve asked GMs and talent scouts around the league to dissect the many dealings of the Minnesota Fatboys. The following is a breakdown of every trade in Gleeman World history. It’s finally time to determine whether the grumblings of GMs around the league have been deserved, or simply sour grapes.
(See disclaimer below)
SEASON ONE
THE TRADE: Graham Duffy, C (Tampa Bay Devil Rays) for Clarence Arnold, SS (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: This trade is firmly in the Fatboys favor. Duffy came to the Fatboys and immediately began contributing as an above average backstop at the Major League level. He spent the first three seasons hitting .305, with an OPS of .853. Arnold came to Tampa Bay and immediately was sent to AA. He hit for a decent average, but never managed to play more than 74 games in a injury-riddled minor league career.
WINNER: Fatboys. Any time you trade a Punching Judy minor leaguer with zero power potential (literally) for an above average hitter at a premium position at the Major League level, you’ve got a clear winner.
THE TRADE: Jumbo Rijo, C/1B, (Iowa City Comics) for Chris Parnell, 3B/COF Joe Gray, RP, and J.D. Kieschnick SP (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Easily one of the worst trades in league history. With multiple offers still on the table, the Comics parted with the elite hitting prospect in the game. Hitting above .350 with 30 HRs between High A and AA before being shipped to Minnesota, he continued to put up historic numbers throughout the minor leagues as he glacially traveled through the Fatboys farm system. In his two-plus big league seasons, he’s hit .305, smashed 160 homeruns, and had an OPS of 1.029, along with winning both the Rookie of the Year and a Silver Slugger. Parnell came to Iowa City, and immediately contributed 39 home runs and 105 RBI in his first full season with the Comics, but since then has never had an OPS over .800 or a batting average over .252. Joe Gray was the second piece of the trade for the Comics, armed with mediocre stamina, control, splits, and pitches, he toiled in the minors for the Comics maxing out at AAA before leaving via free agency. Kieschnick, who buy the numbers looked to be a promising starting pitcher candidate after posting a 12-2 record in AAA with a WHIP of 1.08 and a ERA of 2.44 before the trade came over and posted an ERA double of that for the Comics AAA, before getting promoted anyway at the end of the season and having some success in his call up. Those numbers were never duplicated though, and after 67 starts at the major league level, he posted a .500 record, a 4.65 ERA, and is sitting in his home of Derby, Kansas waiting for a team to call and coaching the pitchers at his alma mater.
WINNER: Fatboys. I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to call this one anything but an absolute flogging. Giving up one of the best hitters in the game, who is still making league minimum, the Comics got an average-plus 3Ber, a mediocre SP that they let walk, and a minor league lifer. They’d have been better off asking for a massage table and the team bus.
THE TRADE: Albert Hughes, OF (Syracuse) for Christopher Hines, P, (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Two low-profile players exchanged with little or no results for either team. Hughes, a good glove, no hit kind of player, spent a couple years in AAA for the Fatboys. Hines, spent some years in the Syracuse bullpen, putting up good numbers early in his career, before his below average pitches caught up with him.
WINNER: A minor victory for the Fighting B’s, but the Fatboys did spin Hughes for something else, so we’ll see how that turned out later.
THE TRADE: Eddie Mackowiak, RP (Tampa Bay) for Edgardo James, RP (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Another puzzling deal for Tampa Bay. They give up Mackowiak, who immediately stepped into an important spot in the Fatboys bullpen, for James, a beyond mediocre starting pitching “prospect” who immediately posted his first of five consecutive seasons of 5+ ERA throughout the Devil Rays farm system. While Mackowiak was expensive in season one ($4.4 million), trading a legit bullpen arm, for a guy who literally had nothing redeeming about him other than being a potential organ donor, makes little to no sense.
WINNER: Fatboys. Does Aaron buy Frymaster breakfast the next morning?
THE TRADE: Darren Harris, RP, Troy Smith, RP (Indianapolis Clowns) for Louis Lyon, RP (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: The clowns traded for their potential closer of the future, and they have to feel like they never quite got what they were looking for out of Lyon. After two-plus mediocre years in AAA, the Clowns pulled Lyon up and he turned that into a good 32 innings, pitching with his signature low WHIP and this time keeping his ERA in line with it, at 3.03. When ownership sent the team to Pittsburgh, Lyon saw his numbers creep up, but he’s had a respectable career as a reliever. Like everybody else, Harris spent a long time in the minors before finally staying in the bigs for seasons 5, 6, and 7. His career ERA of 4.23 is a shade higher than Lyon’s. Troy Smith spent his first three seasons in the minors before finally getting his shot in season four. He had a bloated 5.32 ERA in season four, and while he rallied in season five, he ballooned in season six before being traded to Nashville.
WINNER: Draw. I can’t give anyone a win for this trade, although you could make the argument for both sides. It’s kind of like deciding who makes a better pair of black jeans, Levi’s or Wrangler. In the end, their still black, and unless you’re The Boss, you shouldn’t be wearing them.
THE TRADE: Jamie Chang, RP and David Cora, 1B (Indianapolis Clowns) for Juan Gonzales, SP (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Cora spent the first three-plus seasons of his career in the Fatboys farm system, putting up near identical years at AA twice with about 20 HRs and 100 RBI and OPS hovering around .850. Called up in season 4, He’s been a good bench bat on one of the deepest benches in the bigs, hitting .306 with 36 HRs and a very good .893 OPS in 191 games over bits of four seasons. Chang, who looked like the prized piece of the trade, ended up bizarrely retiring, possibly upset at the prehistoric pace of moving up through the Fatboys farm system. He even went through the ridiculous process of getting all his statistics removed from his player card, so I was forced to make up that he went back to Japan to work for Nintendo developing Wii Baseball. Which turned out pretty cool, so at least he wasn’t a complete waste. Gonzales lasted one season in Indy, never starting a game and throwing 70 innings out of the pen before signing a nice FA deal with Albuquerque the next season.
WINNER: Slight win for Fatboys. With Chang taking his ball and going home, Cora for Gonzales seems pretty much about even, but letting him walk makes it a win for the Fatboys.
THE TRADE: Darwin Stocker, RF, Turk Bunning, RP, and Esteban Manzanillo, SS (Kansas City Monarchs) for Theodore Presley, LF, P.J. Davis, RP, and Glenallen Oliver, RP (Kansas City Monarchs)
THE SKINNY: Theodore Presley started season one in the bigs and proceeded to defecate all over himself, to the tune of a .225 average and .682 OPS. He spent some time in the bigs in season two as well, but spent his last two seasons in the minors before calling it a career. Davis spent season one as a closer, but blew about a third of his save opportunities. He was shipped out after the season in another trade. Oliver played three uninspired seasons before retiring with an ERA a shade beneath 5.00. Meanwhile, Stocker has been manning the outfield for the Fatboys since the middle of Season 3, after getting a taste of the bigs for the final 28 games in Season 2. He’s been an All-Star caliber RF, being named to the squad and winning the Silver Slugger in season 4. He’s a 25-30 HR guy with excellent base stealing skills. A very good to great player. Bunning spent seasons 2-5 with the Fatboys, throwing both out of the pen and as a spot starter for the Fatboys, with just about average results. His ERA fluctuated, but he was a decent performer for league minimum. Manzanillo was an everyday player for his first three seasons with the Fatboys, playing both 2B and SS. He hit .270 with a very good glove and arm as an everyday player.
WINNER: Fatboys in a drubbing. Getting two everyday, young, cheap players and another average reliever for a brutal bench player, a closer that was shipped out of town the next year, and a mediocre reliever is worse than dropping twenty bucks to buy that blonde and her friends a top shelf vodka drink and having them wiggle away and dance with that douche bag in an Ed Hardy shirt. You just lost beer money, pride, and any hope for the future. Kevin McHale would be proud.
THE TRADE: Zach Tyner, RP, and Javier Picasso, P, (Rochester Rochester Redwings) for Harry Matos, RP, and James Nixon, CF (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Tyner’s decent minor league numbers never translated to the bigs, with the exception of his Season 3 ERA of 3.31. His ERA ballooned into the sevens before he was sent to the minors and retired after season 4. Picasso spent Season One in the bigs starting 31 games for the Fatboys, and posting a nice 13-7 record to go along with a good 4.11 ERA. He started 20 games in season two and his ERA ballooned up a run, and spent Season 3 in the pen before he retired. Matos was making $1.8 million and contributed a 11 run ERA before being cut loose. Nixon got nearly 500 Abs for the RRR’s and only hit .239 and made $2.9 million for his troubles. The good news was that he was one of the first guys to wear sweet sunglasses.
WINNER: Fatboys. Dumping nearly $5 million in salaries and getting two guys who played is always a good move. That said, pretty much a standard salary dump for Team Tubby.
THE TRADE: Placido Campos, 2B, Terry Prince, P, and Nick Teut, IF (Clowns) for Ken Ramirez, SP, Wilt Ruffin, P, Victor Lawrence, SP (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Campos has been playing the hot corner since Season One, although spent time in AAA in seasons 1, 2, and 5. He’s a .763 career OPS guy in the majors, and has played in over 100 games in the show only once in his career. Prince got stuck in a logjam of pitching, had injury problems, but still had some nice years in AAA and a good ten starts in the bigs before he was traded to the Isotopes. Teut spent games at nearly every position on the diamond hitting a shade under .290 for the first four seasons of his career. Ramirez was a bad starter for his first two seasons in the bigs, posting ugly numbers across the board. He played four seasons before being cut-off and is still looking for work. Ruffin’s career mirrors Ramirez, only with slightly better results and some time riding buses in AAA, before being cut. Lawrence looked to be the prize of this trade, with great ratings, but still hasn’t broken through with a great season in the bigs. He’s only 25, so we’ll see how he does, but with ratings like that, it’s going to be a very spendy proposition to see if he every becomes that pitcher.
WINNER: Fatboys. Quite an appropriate name for the team from Indy…
SEASON TWO
THE TRADE: Andres Moreno, RP, Julian Martin, SP, and Bono Hughes, 3B, for Chili Rogers, RF/3B
THE SKINNY: After ripping 62 bombs in Season One, the Fatboys put Chili Davis on the market and pulled in 3 young players. Moreno started 18 times in AAA and posted an ERA just under 4. He was shipped out to San Antonio midway through season 3. Martin had a very good year in AA and a slow start in AAA before getting sent to the Isotopes in Season 3 as well. Hughes spent two years mashing in the minors before getting a chance to play everyday in Season 4. He averaged around 25 HRs and 90 RBI before being sent to Tampa Bay this season.
WINNER: INCOMPLETE. Rogers is one of the great sluggers of the league, but seeing what became of the talented trio will determine whether this was a good trade or not. (That said, it's hard to think that the Fatboys couldn't have used an extra 57, 56, 71, 64, and 55 home runs. Maybe this is a Fatboys loss... )
SEASON THREE
THE TRADE: Toby Joseph, 1B (San Antonio Sting) for Rich D'Amico, LF, Andres Moreno, RP, and Dave Peterson, SP (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Gleeman spun one piece of the Rogers trade for Toby Joseph, who’s a two-time MVP. He’s won a Silver Slugger and a Golden Glove, and even managed to not get demoted by the Fatboys, so that’s really saying something. With a lifetime OPS over 1.000, and almost twice as many walks as strikeouts, he’s one of the games elite. D’Amico came to the Sting and was placed in AA, and got his first break in the bigs a season later. He’s still bouncing back and forth from the minors, and cleared waivers this season. In 611 MLB ABs, he’s only hit 6 HRs. Moreno’s best work for the Sting came a few seasons back, and he’s been a mediocre reliever since the trade. Peterson spent most of his time in the minors, but in his 20 big league starts he gave up 27 HR, a slugging percentage of .551, and an ERA of 7.33.
WINNER: I’m not sure what the Spurs got here, but they’d have been better off with Herpes or the Clap. Brutal deal for them.
THE TRADE: Joey Ward, SP, Rob Tracy, IF, and Herman Grace, IF (Albuquerque Isotopes) for Terry Prince, P, and Julian Martin, SP (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: The Fatboys move two pieces that they acquired, one in the Chili Davis trade and the other in the Season One trade with the Clowns, for Ward, who now starts for the Fatboys, Tracy, a light hitting infielder, and Grace, a once promising prospect who still hasn’t gotten on track.
WINNER: MEH… A lot of these guys kept on moving, so there isn’t much to judge, but the Isotopes sure didn’t win this one.
THE TRADE: Dale Rooney, SP and $4,500,000 (Monarchs) for Justin Hughes, OF/1B (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Hughes had two nice seasons in High A, with a ridiculous 162 RBI in his repeat year, and started off hot in AA when he was traded for Rooney, who started out a hard-luck 2-6 before being traded. He went 9-2 with a 3.77 ERA for the Fatboys, filling their need for a true ace, and not costing them a penny that season. He threw well until Season 5, when his ERA ballooned up.
WINNER: Fatboys. Until Hughes does anything big, and with his current ratings it doesn’t look like it will ever happen, picking up an Ace in midseason and getting his salary paid for and only giving up a B-list prospect for it, that’s good work. Hopefully Kansas City picked up some NBC Sports swag for all the good work.
THE TRADE: Benji Fernandez, IF/OF, and Albert Hughes, IF/OF, (Oklahoma City Twins) for Alex Sano, P (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: After spending his age 21 season in High A putting up nice numbers with a good OBP, the Twins somehow thought those numbers meant Benji Fernandez was ready to go straight to the big leagues. He had a nice first season in the show, hitting .291 and stealing 53 bags, before floundering to a .233 season the very next. Playing mostly at 2B, he’s had a nice .374 OBP and stolen 216 bases now into his fifth season in the bigs. Also good, considering that of his 189 pounds, he wears about 30 of it in his face. Hughes played three years in the bigs, playing in about 135 games for three seasons. He was one of the leagues least valuable offensive players in his time there, putting up a Tyner-esque .281 slugging and a .605 career OPS. Sano has been a garbage man for the Fatboys the past couple years, taking good minor league numbers, and posting average MLB numbers in 113 innings.
WINNER: Twins. Even if they might have mismanaged Fernandez’s career and cost themselves millions of salary, and might lose out on his best years because he’s eligible for free-agency, they gave up a guy who primarily has been working mop up duty for a good base stealing position player. As Charlotte Blackwood said in Top Gun reviewing Maverick’s aerial maneuvers, “While it may have been a victory, I think I've showed that this is a lesson on what not to do.”
SEASON FOUR
THE TRADE: Sterling Keeler, OF and Rich Beech, C, and $3 million (Washington Bureaucrats) for Matthew Allen, 1B (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Allen had his best season in the bigs in Season 3, making the All-Star team, hitting .329, with 21 HR and 101 RBI. The Fatboys moved him at midseason the next year for Keeler, a promising power prospect and Beech, a good receiver who will play in the big leagues against left-handers. Allen’s Season 3 has never been duplicated, and he lacks the power most teams look for in a first baseman. The Bureaucrats must’ve been expecting more, because they placed him on waivers and let him walk in free agency at the end of the season
WINNER: Slightly Fatboys. Allen has been a nice player for a reasonable price ($2.2 million), but for Anaheim. Keeler and Beech both project to play in the bigs, and Keeler could be a premium hitter. It’s bad business giving up two MLB prospects for a guy you let walk a month later. That said, it was a fair deal at the time...
THE TRADE: Ozzie Hawkins, SS and Bruce Robinson, MIF (Bureaucrats) for Goose Hayes, SP and Bruce West, 3B/IF/OF (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Hawkins, a top ten pick in Season 3, is one of the elite SS prospects in the game. He’s moved slowly through the Fatboys organization (surprise, surprise) and is now destroying AA pitching, with 25 HR in 79 games. Robinson has had a cup of coffee in the bigs, and has played well enough as a AAA shortstop. Hayes is a front-line prospect in his own right, with a devastating curveball and decent secondary offerings. He may never turn out to be an Ace, but he could be a good number 2 or 3 starter. West is a guy who can play a bit in the infield, but should probably be an outfielder, has put up nice minor league numbers, but probably is going to be a platoon / 4th outfielder.
WINNER: Fatboys. Basically this trade is Hawkins for Hayes, and most people would take a top SS prospect over a 2nd tier pitching prospect. That said, West could turn into something good, and his upside looks better than Robinson. Not a terrible trade, and if Hayes turns into an ace, this could be a tossup.
THE TRADE: John Sanders, SS, (Nashville Twang) for Esteban Manzanillo, SS (Fatboys)
THE SKINNY: Manzannilo, acquired in Season One and plugged into the lineup at shortstop was traded for a younger version of himself, John Sanders, a second rounder from the year before. Profiled then as a light-hitting, slick fielding infielder, who struggles to hit righties, the Fatboys moved Manzanillo right after he won a $4.5 million salary in arbitration. Manzanillo moved over to 3B, won a gold glove for the Twang, and then moved on in free agency after he was overpaid by Boise.
THE WINNER: Incomplete. Manazillo gave a couple good years to the Twang, and Sanders got moved in another big trade, so while Sanders never turned into a player for the Fatboys, he’s helped them in the end.
COMING SOON... PART TWO.
Disclaimer: This very well isn't the best assessment of how well these players performed. If I'd have known that Gleeman is about as active moving through ballplayers as Alyssa Milano, I'd have just gone for the highlights. Either way, hopefully nobody takes too much offense to these assessments, and just thinks a little bit more before trading with the Gleeman, aka k-19, The Widowmaker.
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