The St. Louis Cardinals spent the MLB Winter Meetings saying they were going to finally pick a lane. Then, true to form, John Mozeliak did exactly the opposite.
In what will be his final season as the president of baseball operations, Mozeliak has done frustratingly little to improve St. Louis' long-term outlook. There was plenty of chatter about how the Cardinals were too old, too weak at the farm level, but Mozeliak did not trim costs in a substantial way — nor did he seek to meaningfully elevate the Cardinals' youth.
Perhaps the biggest storyline of St. Louis' offseason was Nolan Arenado's will he-won't he trade sweepstakes. Equipped with a no-trade clause, the 34-year-old effectively gave the Cardinals front office a list of teams he would accept a trade to. Then, when one of those teams — the talent-hungry Houston Astros — came knocking, Arenado balked and the deal fell apart.
Mozeliak made a concerted effort to trade Arenado, but once the Astros connection dried up, there just wasn't much of a market for an aging ex-star on such an exorbitant contract. Due $52 million over the next three years, Arenado is a pricey commodity. Teams did not want to pay Arenado's full salary, but the Cardinals were reluctant to swallow a significant portion of it in order to return meaningful value and open up opportunities for younger infielders.
Might the Cardinals reverse course and finally get Arenado on the plane to a new city ahead of the 2025 trade deadline?
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Now is the time for the Cardinals and Nolan Arenado to part ways
This feels like a must. Arenado has stubbornly avoided certain franchises, but the Cardinals are 14-18 after a loss on Thursday and going nowhere fast. When Chaim Bloom takes over next winter, we can expect a wholesale commitment to boosting the talent pipeline in the Minor Leagues and resetting the deck at the MLB level. If St. Louis isn't going to win games and meaningfully compete, there's hardly a reason for Arenado to stick around and toil on a bad contract.
Even if the Cards need to eat some of Arenado's salary to get him out the door, a trade would benefit all parties. For as dispiriting as this St. Louis season has been on a whole, Arenado looks better than he did a year ago and he's still one of the best players on the field for manager Oli Marmol. Arenado's numbers have come back down to earth after a red-hot start to the campaign, but his .747 OPS is an improvement over last season and he's in the 87th percentile for outs above average at third base, continuing to provide elite defense at a premium position.
A lot of teams need Arenado, to be frank. The contract situation is not ideal, but he's a seasoned vet with a stable — if not always explosive — track record at the plate. The Phillies, for example, always made sense for Arenado; Alec Bohm's dreadful season could rekindle their interest. The Astros balked after repeated overtures in the offseason, but Houston's infield has been a real mixed bag. With Christian Walker, Mauricio Dubón and Cam Smith all struggling, it shouldn't be too hard to find a spot for Arenado after all this time.
Several other contenders (and wannabe contenders), from the Blue Jays to the Tigers to even the Yankees, can probably justify poking around the Arenado marketplace. St. Louis probably won't get the exact return or financial relief it desires, but at a certain point, stubbornness can sink a front office. The Cardinals need to move in a new direction, opening up more opportunities for young talent and building torward the future. Arenado works against those goals, and this season is going nowhere rather quickly.
Call it in.