There are several ways an MLB team can share the news with a player that he’s made the Opening Day roster. How the Texas Rangers informed right-handed relief pitcher Carter Baumler that he earned a spot on the club’s big league roster might be the best of them all.
While working the fifth inning of the Rangers’ spring training game on Monday against the Kansas City Royals, Baumler got a visit on the mound from manager Skip Schumaker.
It probably appeared to Baumler at first that he was going to be replaced after tossing just seven pitches.
Instead, Schumaker used the moment to tell the 24-year-old hurler that he’s going to be on the Rangers’ roster for the club’s 2026 MLB season opener against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, Pa., on Thursday.
This is awesome 🥹
— Ben Verlander (@BenVerlander) March 24, 2026
Rangers manager, Skip Schumaker, went out to the mound not to remove Carter Baumler, a Rule 5 pick, but to inform him that he made the Rangers Opening Day roster during a mound visit
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Hearing the news in that moment must have been even better for Baumler than the sound of a batter whiffing on his pitch, and he can thank Schumaker for making it special.
“You want to make it as memorable as you can,” Schumaker said of his classy move, via Dave Sessions of MLB.com. “I’ll never forget when I got called up — the exact moment, the exact game, in Memphis, Tennessee. … It was just like the most amazing time. I was just trying to think of a special way to tell him.”
It has been quite a ride for Baumler, who was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Rule 5 draft in December before the Bucs traded him to Texas for Jaiker Garcia and cash.
