Possible deals are big deals to players and their families

Any team in baseball would love to add Matt Holliday's bat to its lineup. Dustin Bradford/Icon SMI John Donovan's Mailbag Comments, questions or obviously unfounded criticism? To e-mail Donovan, use the form below. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

Brian Fuentes has a trailer that he loads up with family possessions: a bunch of toys for his kids, some stuff for his wife, a few things in there for him. If the news comes, he'll get his dad to hitch it to the back of his truck, have him point it in the right direction and then have him take off. That's one way Fuentes has prepared for Thursday's trade deadline.

Matt Holliday has talked about possible trades with his wife, and his folks, and his friends, and anyone else who asks. "My wife," said the Rockies' slugger, "has made preparations for any scenario." Still, as his teammate Fuentes and a lot of other players on the trading bubble around baseball these days know, there's only so much that can be done between now and whenever it is that Holliday's career, and his life, careen around that latest blind turn.

This is a great time of year for teams trying to get better, and fans watching them try. But for the men who are in the middle of the mill, and their families, this is Uncertainty Central, where the athlete's old adage about not worrying about things out of your control is put to the test. Holliday could be playing in Tampa in the next couple of days. Or St. Louis. Or Los Angeles. Fuentes could be in Tampa. Or South Florida. Or Chicago. Or any number of other places.

Maybe it's not very likely. The Rockies still kind of consider themselves contenders, maybe, in the mostly non-contending National League West. But they've just lost two in a row to the Pirates. Colorado has to go 34-20 the rest of the way just to finish above .500. That's .630 ball for a team that played the first 108 games at a .444 clip.

So a trade for one or both of these guys is still a distinct possibility, especially considering that Fuentes, the coveted lefty closer, is a free agent after the season and Holliday, who has a career .322 average, is one after '09. Fuentes is the more likely to go, but either way, the Rockies might well want to get something concrete for their young stars before they head off into free agency.

And that's what leads to all the anxiousness, even as the players do a decent job of not letting us see them sweat.

"Your family probably worries about it more than you do," said Holliday, a 28-year-old outfielder who has spent his entire five-year big-league career with the Rockies. "My wife, when people ask her ...," he stops.

"The indecision probably makes her ...," he pauses again.

"I think she's ready for it to be over, one way or the other," Holliday finishes.

Holliday and his wife, Leslee, have two sons, 4-year-old Jackson and 16-month-old Ethan, and the rumors and possible imminent move have an effect on them, too. Jackson often can be found around the Rockies clubhouse. Leaving that would not be easy for a kid with perhaps the world's coolest pre-school teachers. "He'd be sad, 'cause a lot of these guys he's really close with," Holliday says. "I'm sure that would be a little hard for him, but we all can adjust and make things work."

A move might be even tougher for Fuentes, who has been with the Rockies since 2002. He and his wife, Barbara, have three kids -- including twins that are less than a year old -- and another one due in October.

"I know," he said, laughing at the timing. "It's hard to travel with two infants that can't even walk. And one that's been walking only about a year. And another one due in October.

"I'm more worried about her than I am worried about me. And she knows that. She wants me to concentrate on playing rather than worrying about getting her a flight out and all that. There's a lot involved. But we might be worrying about nothing."

The whole process -- packing, moving across country, unpacking and then doing it again -- is not unfamiliar to these players. Holliday started his career as an 18-year-old in the Arizona League, then made appearances with the Asheville (N.C.) Tourists, the Salem (Va.) Avalanche, the Carolina Mudcats (Zebulon, N.C.), the Tulsa (Okla.) Drillers and the Colorado Springs Sky Sox. Fuentes, in his minor league stops and in rehabilitation outings, has played with the Everett (Wash.) Aqua Sox, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (Appleton), the Lancaster (Calif.) Jethawks, the New Haven (Conn.) Ravens, the Tacoma (Wash.) Rainiers, the Sky Sox and the Tourists.

But even for families used to a player's nomadic existence, this is different. "This won't be just like spring training," Fuentes said, "but we had to do it from California [the Fuentes' make their offseason home in Merced, Calif.] to Tucson [the Rockies' spring training site in southern Arizona] and from Tucson to Denver. Now, it'll be from Denver to whatever. Maybe."

All the uncertainty is compounded for the families because the Rockies are on the road. They finish their series with the Pirates on Wednesday night, then travel to South Florida for a game on Thursday -- D-Day -- with the Marlins. The deadline is at 4 p.m. ET.

"I hear stuff. It's almost a running joke in here," Fuentes said in the Rockies' clubhouse in Cincinnati. "'Oh, you're going to Florida.' 'You're going to Tampa tomorrow.' It's all in good fun, and really it's because nobody knows.

"It's hard to describe it. It's a sense of anticipation. I want the day to come and go so I can just forget about it. But at the same time it's not like it's not a big deal. It is a big deal."

Even, as it may end up, if there's no deal at all.