After a frustratingly cold offseason, it seemed like the St. Louis Cardinals had finally resigned themselves to the prospect of Nolan Arenado starting the 2025 season as the team's third baseman. Of course, that's not such a bad thing in the abstract, but it very much is when you're trying to get younger and financially flexible while opening up opportunities for players you'd like to get a better look at — you know, all the reasons why the team was so set on trading him in the first place.
Despite John Mozeliak's very public efforts, that trade failed to materialize all winter, as Arenado used his full no-trade clause to greatly curtail his potential landing spots and then went ahead and nixed a potential deal to one of the teams on that list anyway. Mozeliak was frustated by his star's perceived lack of flexibility, Arenado was frustrated at being made the bad guy of St. Louis' abrupt rebuild, and everyone seemed set to ride things out at least until the trade deadline.
And then, all of a sudden, everything changed. Arenado said all the right things about how focused he was on helping St. Louis be as good as it could be in 2025, but it turns out that he was not in fact looking forward to another slog of a season while answering questions about his future. According to an MLB.com report on Saturday, Arenado has now reconsidered his stance on a trade to the Houston Astros, the same team that he shot down back in December. All of which has to have Mozeliak privately ready to tear his hair out.
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John Mozeliak claims ultimate victory in standoff with Nolan Arenado
In Arenado's defense, he earned that full no-trade clause, and was and remains well within his rights to exercise it. And he initially approved the Astros as a trade destination before the team traded Kyle Tucker and lost Alex Bregman and Justin Verlander in free agency, without a ton of time to reconsider whether he still thought they were a fit.
Still, this whole thing has shown a remarkable lack of foresight on the third baseman's part, of which this about-face is just the latest example. According to MLB.com's report, Arenado is now reconsidering Houston, citing team's signing of Christian Walker to play first base — "a move which hadn’t been made when Arenado vetoed the trade and shows the Astros’ plan to push forward as contenders."
Which is true enough, but is it really all that convincing? The Astros were a good but flawed team in a very winnable AL in December, and that remains true now. The only thing that's really changed is Arenado's situation. It seems like what happened here was a miscalculation by Arenado, who just assumed that one of the big Southern California teams (Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres) or one of the Northeast powers (New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox) would jump at the chance to acquire him, and refused to game out what might happen if that didn't prove to be the case.
But Arenado simply isn't the player that he used to be, and it was always a long shot that one of his preferred destinations made sense as a fit. The Dodgers and Mets have third basemen, the Padres and Yankees don't have the money and the Red Sox always had eyes for Alex Bregman instead. Arenado is just now realizing what Mozeliak knew all along: that Houston was the only feasible contender with the means and the roster flexibility to make this work. Luckily for St. Louis, it's better late than never.