New Texas Rangers pitcher found out he was traded on Instagram

Trades are funny sometimes, like when you don’t know you’re being traded.

That’s what happened to new Texas Rangers pitcher Robert Ahlstrom on Saturday.

Along with Albert Abreu, Ahlstrom was traded to the Texas Rangers from the New York Yankees in exchange for catcher Jose Trevino. And the latter clearly wasn’t aware of the transaction when it was first reported.

New Texas Rangers pitcher Robert Ahlstrom found out he was being traded on Instagram

This definitely isn’t the first time a player was last to find out they had been on the move, but it’s always comical to find out the method by which they received that information was … social media.

Ahlstrom was a seventh-round draft selection by the Yankees in 2021 out of the University of Oregon. Now, he joins the Texas Rangers’ minor league ranks as pitching depth for an organization with a rising farm system.

Sports Illustrated’s Chris Halicke, who covers the Rangers, wrote this about how the trade went down.

“While the Rangers gave Trevino the honor of an in-person meeting—including president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, general manager Chris Young, manager Chris Woodward and catching coach Bobby Wilson—to inform him of the trade, Ahlstrom found out on social media.”

Although it’s understandable that Trevino, the most established MLB player involved in the trade, would get a meeting, that doesn’t justify the fact that Ahlstrom had to hear this news in a more roundabout manner. This is just part of the disparity that exists between how organizations treat their big league players and their minor leaguers. Minor leaguers have to work hard enough to sustain themselves as it is, they should at least be contacted by team officials as a courtesy during trade talks.

In any event, Instagram certainly wasn’t the way Ahlstrom had intended to find out he would be traded to the Texas Rangers. Even if he was the least known player in the trade, some form of official team communication would’ve been appreciated!