The Yankee Clause

“Give the Red Sox credit for taking no chances. Their $142 million deal with Carl Crawford includes a clause that prohibits any team he’s traded to from then trading him to the Yankees. They rarely give no-trade clauses, and in Crawford’s case allowed him to block trades to only two teams.”

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel confident that something like this has never happened before, and is probably impossible to enforce. Can a contract really stipulate what one team can do with a player once they’re on the payroll?

Still, any team that ever wants to trade with the Red Sox in the future would be wise to heed their warning, and not begin baseball’s version of a nuclear holocaust.