Trades provide huge disruption to players
ANAHEIM, Calif. – Dan Haren is a veteran of nine big league seasons, a three-time All-Star with a four-year, $45-million contract, so the image of the pitcher lugging dirty laundry to his in-laws’ house like some home-for-the-weekend college student seems a little far-fetched.
But that’s exactly what the 30-year-old Haren did several times over the final two months of the 2010 season, after his July 25 trade last summer from the Arizona Diamondbacks to the Angels.
Haren, who is married with two young children, owns a home in Phoenix, and with the Angels trying to catch the Texas Rangers in the American League West, he knew he wouldn’t have the time and energy to relocate his family to Orange County right away.
So he spent the final two months of last season living in hotels, at home and on the road, coordinating visits from his wife and kids, renting cars when needed and taking advantage of the washer and dryer at his in-laws’ West Covina home.
“When I needed to do laundry I went there,” Haren said. “Or when we went on a road trip, I’d pack one suitcase with dirty clothes, leave it with them, take the clean clothes with me, and then switch out suitcases when I got back.
“It wasn’t fun living out of a hotel for so long. We knew it would be hard for two months, but it would be worth it.”
With the flurry of deals before today’s non-waiver trade deadline, another batch of players, including Carlos Beltran, Edwin Jackson, Colby Rasmus and Kosuke Fukudome, must cope with the distractions and challenges of switching teams on the fly.
For second baseman Mark Ellis, traded from Oakland to Colorado on June 30, the transition was fairly smooth.
A .217 hitter with the A’s, Ellis went 11 for 22 with two home runs and seven runs batted in during his first five games with the Rockies and is batting .286 with his new club.
“It was easy for me – I just got on a plane and went and played baseball,” Ellis said this past week in Dodger Stadium. “My wife packed up our place in San Francisco, got the moving company lined up, oversaw the guys loading the truck and found a new place in Denver. I was able to concentrate on baseball.”
Colorado outfielder Ty Wigginton struggled after being dealt from the New York Mets to Pittsburgh at the trade deadline in 2004, going 5 for 40 in his first 12 games with the Pirates, but he couldn’t blame the physical move.
“My wife was in Atlanta with me, she flew back to New York, packed up the apartment, packed up the car, drove to Pittsburgh and found a furnished apartment in a few days,” Wigginton said. “I pretty much had my baseball bag and was off to Pittsburgh.
“What was really hard was going from the Mets, who were within three games of (the) wild card, to Pittsburgh, which was not in the race. I was naive enough to think I was going to be a Met for life, so that was difficult.”
The Dodgers’ Casey Blake, who came from Cleveland at the trade deadline in 2008, said, “The hard stuff is going to a clubhouse where you don’t know anybody.”
At the time the only Dodger he knew was backup catcher Danny Ardoin.
“It’s like being the new kid in school. It’s really tough,” he said. “At first, I was like, ‘This stinks,’ not knowing this was probably the best thing to happen to me in my career.”
New teammates aren’t the only people to which players must adjust. Former reliever Todd Jones, who played for eight teams during a 16-year career, said the first questions he asked in a new clubhouse were about which journalists and which trainers he could trust.