St. Louis Cardinals Report: Nolan Arenado trade seems ‘inevitable’

The news seems to be building that a Nolan Arenado trade is coming. If it does, the St. Louis Cardinals have to be one of the frontrunners.

The St. Louis Cardinals were publicly thrust into the Nolan Arenado conversation on Tuesday when they were linked to be interested in the slugger by Jeff Passan. Since then, St. Louis has been in an Arenado frenzy just dreaming of what it would be like to have the third baseman in Cardinal red.

As the week has gone on, the craze has just gotten worse, and today there is more news.

After Jeff Passan weighed in, Ken Rosenthal did his due diligence this morning:

The main thing to grab from this article is that Rosenthal describes an Arenado trade as becoming more and more ‘inevitable.’

As a Cardinals fan, that should make you beam.

While this news came out, I was finishing this post on why the Cubs make no sense for the Rockies as trade partners. Basically, the Cubs have very few assets and no cap room. The financials just don’t make sense.

From reports from Passan and Rosenthal, the Cubs, Rangers and the Cardinals are the clear frontrunners and with the Cubs as a bad fit, the Cardinals become the lead pony.

The whole reason that Rosenthal sees trade as ‘inevitable’ is that Arenado wants to win now. After signing his current seven-year, $260M deal last year, Arenado said the Rockies, “feel like a rebuild.” Which, with context, doesn’t sound like something the superstar in the prime of his career wants to be a part of.

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So what better than to come to a team that made it to the final four teams standing last year and a team that needs help at his position. The relationship is strained and both sides might end up better if they just move on.

The Cardinals have made a similar trade before when they acquired Scott Rolen in 2002 and Rosenthal does a much better job of breaking the situation down than what I could, but basically, it could be deja vu with Arenado. Get the Athletic, read the piece.

The Rangers could step in as bigger rivals for an Arenado trade as they have a need for third base, but the Cardinals are still going to be in it. John Mozeliak has been interested in Arenado in the past and while he has said he wants to keep payroll where it was last year, Arenado is a clear exception to the rule and they would have to break that rule for Arenado.

The Cardinals have very few players under large contracts past 2021 so the length and size of Arenado’s contract is something they could stomach longterm.

Don’t sweat the lockout after year two either. If Arenado believes he can make more than $35M on the open market as a 30 year old in two years, he would’ve been well worth it for two years.

Arenado would be a fantastic player to bring onto the team as long as you can get him for anything less than trading Jack Flaherty and Dylan Carlson. Hopefully we will see some action this soon.