MLB Trade Deadline: 4 Players Share Memories of a Life-Changing Day

DENVER — As the 2024 MLB trade deadline approaches, there are plenty of players around the league who are wondering what the next few hours or days hold for them. For some, being sent to another team will not only give them a chance to chase a World Series ring, but will also upend their personal and professional lives.

While baseball is, at its very core, a game, this is the time of year that also serves as a reminder that it is a business as well. With the 2024 MLB trade deadline set for July 30 at 6 p.m. (Eastern), this is prime time for rumors to begin and serious talks between teams to escalate.

So what impact did the MLB trade deadline have on some players? We asked four who have undergone the stress and sometimes shock of the timeframe to find out.

Colin Rea, currently with Milwaukee Brewers

Traded on July 29, 2016 by the San Diego Padres with Andrew Cashner, Tayron Guerrero and cash to the Miami Marlins for Carter Capps, Luis Castillo, Jarred Cosart and Josh Naylor.
Traded on July 31, 2016, by the Miami Marlins to the San Diego Padres for Luis Castillo

Rea’s cross-country journey (and back again) is one of the stranger MLB trade deadline deals in recent memory. The right-hander was sent from San Diego to Miami and started for the Marlins one day later. However, Rea exited the game with a right elbow injury after 3.1 innings and was subsequently placed on the injured list.

With the injury, the Marlins and Padres worked out a deal where Rea would go back to San Diego in exchange for Luis Castillo (who would eventually become a three-time All-Star with the Cincinnati Reds and Seattle Mariners).

The injury would eventually push Rea to undergo Tommy John surgery, meaning his short stint with the Marlins would also be the last time he would pitch in the Majors until making a return with the Chicago Cubs during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.

The trade, however, was the start of what would be a wild few years for Rea.

“It was a complete surprise, I never saw it coming at all,” Rea recalled. “I don’t even really follow that stuff to begin with, and I didn’t know how it really worked at the time. I figured I would get a phone call from someone in our organization, telling me that, but my buddy saw it on the TV and that’s how I found out.”

Rea saw text messages about the trade and a call from his brother, then it became very clear when Michael Hill, who was the president of baseball operations for Miami at the time, gave him a call.

“He called me and said, ‘Hey, we got you on a flight for later today. Can you pitch for us tomorrow?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, sure,'” Rea recalled. “It all happened so quickly.”

Looking back, Rea said he never even had time to adjust to being on the Marlins due to the quick reversal of the trade after his injury.

Victor Vodnik, currently with Colorado Rockies

Traded on July 24, 2023, along with Tanner Gordon by the Atlanta Braves to the Colorado Rockies for Pierce Johnson

Vodnik and Gordon were teammates with the Double-A Mississippi Braves when they both received the news that they were heading to a new organization.

“I had a buddy with me, too, so that kind of helped a lot with the process and everything,” Vodnik said of the day he heard about the trade.

Vodnik was in the middle of a Double-A campaign where he was posting 12.4 strikeouts per nine innings and a 3.10 ERA/1.254 WHIP in 40.2 innings. A 14th-round pick of the Braves in 2018, Vodnik had reached as high as Triple-A with the Braves before being sent to the Rockies.

“I had somewhat of an idea (he might be traded) because I knew I was performing well and a lot of the guys that I was playing with at the time were like, ‘You’re for sure going to get traded Vic,'” Vodnik remembered. “But, to me, it’s just not really thinking about any of that. It’s about still competing.

“I was focusing on my game and not really worrying about anything else. That’s more the business side of baseball and nothing I can control, so I didn’t worry about it.”

The trade has worked out well for both sides with Vodnik settling into a high-leverage role in the late innings with the Rockies while Gordon has made a pair of starts for Colorado. Gordon talked about his view of the trade in a recent episode of the Clubhouse Chatter podcast. Meanwhile, Johnson has become an integral part of Atlanta’s bullpen in the middle and late innings, signing a two-year, $14.25 million deal before the season began.

Cole Ragans, currently with Kansas City Royals

Traded on June 30, 2023, by the Texas Rangers with Roni Cabrera to the Kansas City Royals for Aroldis Chapman

For Ragans, the deal that sent him to Kansas City was a shocker, especially with the timing of it as the Rangers wanted the veteran Chapman to boost their bullpen as soon as possible.

“Surprised. It was also very early,” Ragans recalled. “We knew as a team obviously, with where Texas was at the time, in the playoff hunt and all that kind of stuff, there was going to be moves. I didn’t know who was going to be part of the moves and didn’t know when. Obviously, mine happened quite early in the process, so I didn’t see it coming.”

While the move was a bit for Ragans to digest, it has worked out extremely well for him and the Royals. In the middle of an All-Star season, the 26-year-old southpaw has settled into the top of the Kansas City rotation and is a key part of the franchise’s push to get back to the postseason for the first time since winning the World Series in 2015.

“I mean, Texas was all I had known at that point, so I had gotten very comfortable there,” Ragans said. “I knew the guys and the staff very well. But I got over here, everybody welcomed me with open arms, and it was a super easy transition.

“You know, I love this place. I love this. This team, the city, the fans. I love everything about it.”

The trade was also good for Texas as Chapman helped them earn a World Series title (a 2.25 ERA in 8.0 postseason innings after 30 regular-season appearances with a 3.72 ERA/3.36 FIP/1.276 WHIP). However, with the fireballer simply a rental, there are plenty in the Lone Star State who are wondering if the Royals still got the best end of the deal with a rotation fixture like Ragans joining the team.

Trevor Story, currently with Boston Red Sox

Rumored to be traded by the Colorado Rockies during the 2021 season, but was not.
Signed with the Boston Red Sox the following offseason.

With Story scheduled to become a free agent at the end of the 2021 campaign, there were plenty of people around baseball who thought the Rockies would trade off Story in the middle of a season where he would eventually slash .251/.329/.471 with 24 home runs and 75 RBI. The two-time All-Star shortstop admitted in his return to Coors Field with the Red Sox on Monday that he expected to be part of a deal before the MLB trade deadline.

However, the Rockies kept Story, setting off a flood of emotions, including confusion, from the shortstop at the time.

Colorado would extend a qualifying offer to Story at the end of the season, but he would eventually sign with Boston.

“Just some crazy emotions when you don’t know what’s going to happen. You feel like something’s gonna happen, then it doesn’t happen,” Story said. “It’s like what (Colorado manager Bud Black) always says, ‘Be ready for anything.'”

Story admitted that the emotions from that 2021 trade deadline and being ready for anything have helped him cope with the number of injuries that have hit him during his time in Boston, including a play in early April that caused a shoulder fracture. In Story’s three seasons with the Red Sox since leaving Colorado, he has played in 145 games.

“You just find a way to find a way to get what you can out of it,” Story said. “It’s about how you respond and I think I’ll be better for this, having gone through it and using it to my advantage.”