St. Louis Cardinals: The hope for Nolan Arenado is still here

The offseason’s dream trade for Nolan Arenado didn’t happen but heading into the season, there is still hope that the St. Louis Cardinals pull it off.

The hopes of the entire offseason for St. Louis Cardinals fans built to a boil at the beginning of January when rumors surrounding a trade for Colorado Rockies superstar, Nolan Arenado, were coming almost daily.

Never has Twitter been so confident that a deal would either be done in the next day or that the team (despite confirmed reports from insiders) had not spoken to Colorado at all. There didn’t seem to be much in between.

Packages were discussed including Dakota Hudson, Nolan Gorman, Tyler O’Neill, and newly acquired top-100 prospect, Matthew Liberatore. There were other names floating around, but it was widely accepted that any package for the third baseman would center around a core group made from this list of players.

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Obviously though, the trade hasn’t happened but the relationship between Arenado and Rockies’ GM Jeff Bridich may still be fractured after the events of this winter. Bridich was apparently “working to right the ship” with Arenado, although any GM who wants to save his own butt would have to take that course of action.

Arenado has a lot of power in this situation given that he controls his own no-trade clause and no team will keep a player that actively speaks out against the GM wanting to leave. Arenado can’t trade himself, but if he wants out, there is no way that the Rockies will keep him there against his will.

When the dust finally settled and it became clear that an offseason Arenado trade was not going to happen (for a few key reasons), fans got angry. However, the longer that the Rockies wait to trade their superstar, the farther his cost falls for bidders.

Because Arenado has so much power in his own fate, the attached clip below was a welcomed gem in this landscape without baseball news.

Love or hate Bob Nightengale, he is an insider that has connections and relationships into the game of baseball. Specifically to our benefit here, he has a relationship with Nolan Arenado that yielded this insight.

If anything, this further confirmed to Cardinals fans that Nolan Arenado likes St. Louis and would most likely waive his no-trade clause to play here. The fact that Arenado still expects to be traded at the deadline (whenever that ends up being) is a good sign for prospective suitors but doesn’t mean anything concrete.

The biggest thing that I would take from this is that if the Rockies are not winning at the 93-win pace that they set for themselves, it could be a perfect storm of events that leads to Nolan Arenado in a Cardinals uniform.

The Cardinals made the most progress on a trade for Arenado than any other team this winter and if/when talks start back up near the trade deadline, that gives them a distinct advantage. This may be grasping at straws, but this is the first Cardinals’ related news we have had in weeks and analyzing the ramifications could be worthwhile in predicting this possible blockbuster trade.