Joe Kelly was one of the many players moved prior to this week’s MLB trade deadline. The former White Sox relief pitcher was traded along with Lance Lynn to the Dodgers late last week.
Kelly previously spent two seasons with the Los Angeles, including winning the World Series in 2020. He’s now back there again looking for another one.
While Kelly wasn’t necessarily surprised that he got moved from a selling White Sox club, how he found out about the trade may surprise some.
WEEI’s Rob Bradford was one of the first people to break the news to Kelly. The two discussed that conversation and more on Audacy’s original podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” this week.
“I was doing a podcast with Ryan Brasier leading up to the trade deadline,” Bradford recalled (5:40 in player above). “In the middle of it, there was a report they’re close on a deal with Joe Kelly and Lance Lynn going to the Dodgers… I texted you saying ‘You’re going to the Dodgers?’ You immediately sprung into action. I texted you that and the next thing you know you were calling. When you called me, was that the first you’d heard of it? Or had you heard of it from other people?”
“You were probably the second person. I think the first person who actually texted me was either my wife or it might have been Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,” Kelly said. “Maybe it was you. You might have the timestamp.”
Kelly was on his way to the field when he started getting multiple texts congratulating him on the trade and welcoming him home to Los Angeles.
“I started getting multiple texts. I was like ‘I haven’t heard anything. I haven’t heard anything. I haven’t even been to the field yet,’” he said. “I was literally in the car and I started getting all these and I was like ‘What the hell is going on, bro?’”
The soon-to-be-traded Kelly then called Bradford, one of the first to inform him of the news.
“There was not even a heads-up or anything. Nothing from (Dodgers President of Baseball Operations) Andrew Friedman. Nothing from (White Sox general manager) Rick Hahn,” he said. “The only people that had an idea I was traded were you guys and the internet, so congratulations.”
News travels fast in today’s day and age, and Kelly felt the effects of that.
“I immediately was calling my agents Sam and Seth and I was like ‘What’s going on?’ They were like ‘I think it’s close. Blah blah blah,’” Kelly continued. So I was like I have to go to the field, obviously, to pack my stuff up if I am traded. I was going there anyway, so. It wasn’t until maybe 30 minutes after I got to the field. I wasn’t even told right away.”
Kelly wanted to still go through his planned routine of working out and throwing before the game, even if he was being traded to a different team.
It just so happened that fellow relief pitcher Kendall Graveman was also in trade purgatory and the two former White Sox relievers had one last game of catch.
“Graveman, at the time, was getting traded too so everyone was telling us bye but nothing was official,” Kelly said. “I was like ‘Grave, you want to go outside and play catch? One more game of catch with my buddy.’”
Kelly was ultimately informed of the trade by a team official before going out to the field to get his work in.
Now, Kelly is back in Los Angeles, a city that embraces everything about him. He took the field to a standing ovation in his first game back and he made sure to soak it all in.
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