This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell’s Padres Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
NEW YORK -- After the Marlins’ slow start to the 2024 season, Luis Arraez began to want something new. Deep down, he wanted to play for a contender. He didn’t make his feelings known publicly. But he let his wife, Gladys, know.
And then, in early May -- sooner than the Arraezes ever expected -- it happened. Luis was traded from Miami, where he and Gladys live with their three daughters. He was headed across the country to San Diego. At the time, Luis was in Oakland. The Padres were beginning a road trip in Arizona. He hadn’t packed for that.
“I didn’t have enough clothes in my suitcase,” Arraez recalled. “She just packed another suitcase for me and sent it. She said ‘Hey, you know [this trade] is what you want.’ … San Diego gave me the opportunity I wanted. When I got to Arizona I felt like I was back playing baseball. And she supported me a lot with that.”
Shortly thereafter, Gladys and Arraez’s three daughters traveled to San Diego to meet their dad at the outset of his Padres tenure.
“It was a lot,” Arraez said of the trade. “Every bit of credit I give it to her, give it to my wife. … Her, my three beautiful daughters, they supported me a lot. They support me always.”
It’s no secret: In-season trades are tough on ballplayers. Their lives are uprooted in an instant. And within a day or two, they’re expected to perform their job at the highest level -- in a new city, with new co-workers.
Those trades are even tougher on ballplayers with families. And, ahead of Mother’s Day on Sunday, the two Padres who had their lives uprooted last summer were quick to give all the credit to their wives for their ability to handle the chaos that comes along with their husbands’ gig.
“You can just never recognize them enough,” said Jason Adam, whose wife Kelsey relocated their four daughters last July in the aftermath of Jason’s trade from Tampa Bay to San Diego. “I think everyone on this team will say that. What Kelsey does behind the scenes to just make sure our family has peace, to make sure I can do my job.
“It appears glamorous, this lifestyle. And there are a ton of perks. I obviously love my job. But it is really hard sometimes, and it’s really hard especially on the wives. They do so much. Having Kelsey, who loves that, who’s happy to do it, who’s happy to serve our family in such a self-sacrificial way, it really means everything.”
Adam’s trade story is slightly less chaotic than Arraez’s. But only slightly. He was traded on a Sunday morning before a home game in Tampa Bay. The Padres, fortunately, had that Monday off.
He called Kelsey from the ballpark and told her the news. She drove to Tropicana Field to help Jason pack, and to say goodbyes to her longtime friends and stadium workers. And then?
“We have four kids, the house is full of junk, we were immediately packing everything up,” Jason said. “We were on a plane at noon the next day to San Diego. And then I have to go work. So the wives wear it. She has to do a lot of the packing and logistics -- while managing four girls.”
The Arraezes and the Adams handled their respective situations differently. Luis still lives in Miami during the offseason. His family made the decision to stay there -- with Gladys and the girls consistently racking up air miles on cross-country flights. When Luis plays just about anywhere in the Eastern time zone, they fly in, too. Gladys brought the Arraez girls to New York for two days this week during the Padres’ series against the Yankees.
“It means a lot,” Luis said. “Even just seeing my daughters for two days -- it’s not enough. But I see my daughters, and it makes me happy.”
The Adams, meanwhile, live in Kansas City, but spend the baseball season wherever Jason is. After he was dealt to San Diego just before the Trade Deadline, he didn’t want that to change.
“When I was traded, I was like: ‘I function best when my family is at peace and in a good spot,’” he said. “So for me, having my wife be willing to just up and leave -- the easier thing for her would have been to ride it out, do [the move] slowly -- but I told her, ‘I want you guys there.’ And she was like ‘Absolutely.’ To have them there with me, the transition went so much smoother. I felt at peace to go perform.”
“She was a champ, and now we’re thriving in San Diego.”