Would This Trade Lead to Fists If It Went Down in Your Fantasy League???

Vinnie Pasquantino zoomed into the show with a fantasy football question, and by the end of it RES Consulting had signed off on one of the most diabolical trades of the season.

The Royals slugger didn't come in cold. He was riding high on a Jets win over the Browns and already mapping out a playoff hunt. "We call it sniffing it here on the Rich Eisen Show," Rich told him. "What's going on? To what do we owe the honor?"

The setup: Pasquantino plays in a guillotine league with his Kansas City Royals teammates and staff. It's a $1,000 league, similar to the one he runs with the show's crew, where every move costs a dollar and you can trade both players and money. If you have zero dollars, you can't make a move.

Here's the problem, or the opportunity. Noah Cameron, a Royals starting pitcher, is in trouble this week. Cameron needs roughly 45 to 50 points to advance tonight, with Matthew Stafford and Khalil Shakir still going. Pasquantino has Puka Nacua.

"He has sent me a Godfather offer for Puka," Pasquantino said. "And I'm screwing him. I just want to make that clear. I know what I'm doing."

The offer: Breece Hall, Rashee Rice, DeVonta Smith and Drake Maye, all for Nacua. Pasquantino's plan was to make Cameron throw in $200 on top of it, because Cameron has no choice.

His only worry was the rest of the league. "Is this legal or is this illegal?" he asked. "I'm fearful that the guys in the league are going to get upset."

Rich had one question that mattered more than anything else. "This is the most important question I've ever asked you," he said. "Is Tommy Pham in this league?"

Pham is not. That took most of the danger off the table. The other managers still alive, Pasquantino explained, include one of the Royals' minor league hitting coaches, Andy LaRoche, and Phil Falco, a former big league strength trainer who now does rehab in the minor leagues. Those guys, Rich figured, are sitting somewhere thinking they're in the clear, because there's no way Cameron gets through the week.

Then Cameron calls up offering what Rich described as "half of the injured list of the National Football League plus the red-hot Drake Maye." And Pasquantino doesn't even need it. His quarterback is Dak Prescott, his team is loaded, and he has some of the most money in the league.

The crew offered a refinement: make Cameron flip Nacua back later. Pasquantino had a better angle. If Cameron loses anyway, Nacua goes back into the pool, and Pasquantino can just buy him, with money he's already taken from Cameron.

The ruling came quickly. "It's not fair, but it is legal," the studio agreed. Pasquantino asked for the moment to be clipped so he could send it to his group chat. When Rich joked that he could just ask Rob Manfred directly, the room reminded everyone that that was a joke.

The show also found a little history on Pasquantino's side. The segment aired on October 12, the anniversary of the Herschel Walker trade in 1989. "There's already been a precedent set about a huge one-sided trade," came the point from the studio.

With that, RES Consulting closed the case. "Only the top-flight people reach out to RES Consulting for the most difficult problems," Rich said. "Okay, Vinnie, I hope we helped."

Afterward, the crew agreed it was a diabolical trade, and that asking about Pham first was exactly right. TJ, for his part, made it clear who the muscle is in this operation.