It is not necessary to list all the baseball players involved in a trade at the time the swap is made. A player can be sent to another team in exchange for “a player to be named later.” It happens quite often.
Years ago the New York Mets acquired a catcher named Harry Chiti from the Detroit Tigers, promising a player to be named later. However, after a time the Mets sent Chiti back to the Tigers. So it can be said that Harry Chiti was actually traded for himself!
From The Giant Book of More Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Chiti
According to Wikipedia, Chiti was traded to/from the Cleveland Indians, not the Detroit Tigers.
Another fun fact is that–although the first–it seems he’s not the last player to have been traded for himself. There have since been three other players who had to deal with this particular embarrassment.
on the note of trades and yet to be completely off topic (as is tradition for me)
russel is getting traded to mercedes for this coming race weekend as hammy caught the rona
from backmarker to fastest car on the grid
if he somehow wins it (and…realistically he shouldnt..getting to grips with a new car isnt a one weekend job) but if he does…. the hammy haters are going to have a field day
i think i need to get me some pop corn for this one