4 Baseball Players Who Were Traded for Themselves
The idea of a professional sports team trading a player for themselves, barring any sort of time machine or multiverse complications, seems impossible. Even outside of the physical impossibility, there’s no reason anyone would want to go through the hassle of negotiations in order to make their team exactly the same as it was before.
In baseball specifically, though, this feat has occurred not just once but on four separate occasions, thanks to a certain facet of some trades — that being that one of the assets included can be a player to be named at a later date. And apparently, there’s nothing in the rulebook that says it can’t be the same player.
Harry Chiti
The first player to achieve this interesting, if ultimately unflattering feat was a catcher by the name of Harry Chiti in 1962. Chiti was already a backup, so it was unlikely his trade would have had a huge effect on a roster, but he probably did at least expect it to stick. Anyway, the New York Mets needed a catcher, and so the Cleveland Indians sent Chiti their way. He did as he was asked, spending a few months with the Mets, before he was once again traded — right back to the Indians as delayed compensation for his own trade.
Brad Gulden
About 20 years later, another player would join Chiti’s strange, rarefied air. This time, it was a New York Yankees player named Brad Gulden, who found himself sent to the Seattle Mariners. What was intended to be a move ended up being more of a vacation, since Gulden was back in New York in return for his past self the very next year. Thankfully, Gulden himself seems to appreciate the weirdness, saying, “If somebody remembers you 20 years after you’ve been out of the game, that’s great.”
Dickie Noles
Dickie Noles was a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, and in 1987, they were having a terrible season, which is kind of the Cubs’ whole thing. The Detroit Tigers, on the other hand, were very much in the playoff race. They kindly requested Noles come and pitch for them, seeing as the Cubs didn’t have much need for a pitcher, or any other player for that matter, for the rest of the season. The Cubs acquiesced, and sent Noles over for the throughline of this article: a Player to Be Named Later.
Noles would end up becoming this player after the end of the season, but that wasn’t always the plan — or at least they’d like people to think it wasn’t. According to the teams involved, they had such a hard time deciding the trade compensation that they just called the whole thing off.
John McDonald
The most recent example, and the only time this millennium, is the 2014 trade-and-return of John McDonald. More than any other player on this list, McDonald makes a lot of sense as a sort of Major League temp, because of his position versatility. By the end of his career, he'd spent time at every position except catcher and first base. McDonald also filled every position in his trade from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Detroit Tigers, though for a brief stint in the middle, cash changed hands instead.
The play-by-play goes, McDonald to the Tigers for compensation to be decided later, that compensation turning into cash, and then that very cash returned to the Tigers to buy him back.
