Texas Rangers: Trading within the AL West surprisingly common

Trades between division rivals are typically few and far in between.

So when the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox pieced one together on Monday, it sent shockwaves across the baseball world.

Adam Ottavino is a quality reliever as well, which makes this Yankees-Red Sox swap all the more intriguing and all the more… rare.

So rare, in fact, that a trade of this magnitude hasn’t occurred between the historic franchises since 2014.

And before that, the last time New York and Boston made an off-season trade?

1937.

You get the idea. These inter-divisional trades are sparse.

But this Yankees-Red Sox transaction got us thinking: when was the last time the Texas Rangers traded with each of their division rivals?

We’ve got the answers in this piece.

Texas Rangers-Houston Astros most recent trade: January 21, 2015

The Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are arch-rivals of each other, with the rivalry having intensified since Houston moved to the American League in 2013.

Their now intra-divisional series is even given a nickname, the “Lone Star Series”.

When your rivalry has a moniker, that’s how you know it’s legitimate.

So it shouldn’t surprise folks that the last time these two organizations concocted a trade together was back in 2015.

That January, the Texas Rangers traded catcher Carlos Corporan to the Houston Astros for minor leaguer Akeem Bostick.

Neither Corporan nor Bostick play for the Astros or Rangers anymore, which essentially makes this trade a wash.

Nevertheless, it’s now been six years since Texas and Houston last made a trade, and we don’t like the chances of a Lone Star Series swap occurring again in the near future, especially since the two teams have only made 10 trades ever with each other.