The Cardinals offseason is at a stand still while they try to trade Nolan Arenado
The Cardinals had a plan. At the beginning of the offseason, the Cardinals asked Willson Contreras, Sonny Gray, and Nolan Arenado if they wanted to stick around. Contreras and Gray chose to stay. Arenado asked to get traded.
He was not surprised Gray and Contreras stayed, even though he had an open mind in case they didn’t.
“Those guys wanted to be a part of what we are doing, they like our young core and so I wasn’t surprised when they decided they wanted to be a part of this.”
He also theorized as to why they wanted to stay in this organization.
“There’s that loyalty of wanting to be a part of something. It could have been very easy for either one of them to say “hey move me” and I think it would have been pretty easy to move them. Both were asked about often. They still believe in their peers in that clubhouse. They think there is a chance that we’re going to be more successful than people think we will be.”
Which I might add is something Sonny Gray absolutely thinks. He emphasized a few times that he’s not totally convinced this is not a winning ballclub. Double negative I know, that’s how he phrased it.
But when Arenado asked to leave, the new plan was to trade Arenado. Things went according to plan at first. They had a deal in place to trade Nolan Arenado to the Astros. Unfortunately, the Astros had recently traded Kyle Tucker, which turned Arenado off from wanting to go to the Astros.
“When Tucker was traded, it’s more like order of operations. If we’d been a few days ahead of that, well…. here we are,” said John Mozeliak.
Listening back to the 30 minute interview that John Mozeliak had with the media on the first day of Winter Warmup, a good portion of it – probably more than half – was dominated by Nolan Arenado, the prospect of trading him, the impact of not being able to trade him, and how it affects other moves. That is a fact that Mozeliak himself acknowledged.
“Priority one, two and three is still Nolan.”
Everything else has come to a complete stop due to Arenado still being a Cardinal. When Katie Woo said it feels like whether he stays or goes is going to be the lynchpin, Mozeliak agreed.
“Well it is a lynchpin, but there’s nothing I can do to make it faster. Right now, we’re in a holding pattern and all I ask is for a little patience on this, because regardless of what I want to do or the team wants to do, that’s just not how it works.”
It seemed implied from his answers that teams are not offering trades to Mozeliak to get Arenado. And I don’t mean trades Mo likes. I mean any trades. Any team interested in Arenado who is also someone Arenado might accept a trade to probably wants to get Alex Bregman first. And of course, teams interested in Bregman won’t automatically be interested in Arenado.
He suggested he has only a certain amount of control when he was asked what the odds are that Arenado is traded, calling it a flip of the coin.
“No there’s not (some sense of clarity),” Mozeliak said. “If the reality is that he’s going to have to join us in camp, then what that looks like. I’d like to say business as usual, but it’s not business as usual. We’re going to find a team that he’s happy with and we’ll use our time as best we can.”
If Arenado does end up staying on the team entering spring training, he was asked if there was a chance that he’s traded during spring training.
“When a player has a no-trade, they have a lot of say in it. I could say something, but it’s really something he and I have to discuss. I imagine there is a mental side to this, he’s thinking like if I have to come to camp, I have to start preparing for that and maybe he wants to be committed to that at that point.”
As for the effect that Arenado still being here has on the rest of the roster, he says Arenado has no impact on the minor league development. They have increased the minor league budget, primarily from coaches and technology, by 20-25%.
What it does affect is the current roster in two ways. The first is that obviously the players already on the roster may not get the kind of at-bats they were hoping for.
“It would definitely affect some of the projected at-bats for some of the younger players. That’s not to say we can’t achieve those, because there’s the DH and other ways to accomplish it. But clearly it would change how we were thinking about our actual infield.”
The other aspect is that the Cardinals are less likely to bolster their MLB team if Arenado stays. If he gets traded, he says they may explore bullpen help or a right-handed bat. I assume the first part of that is contingent on him being traded during the offseason and the latter part is about an outfielder.
It’s not a given that Arenado staying in St. Louis will automatically lead to a trade of another player to shed salary. Mozeliak said that he has some flexibility because the Dewitts understand the situation.
“Really feel like we have some depth in our rotation right now so I really don’t want to start tearing away from that. In terms of thinking about moving a position player to try to achieve a financial goal is something we could consider as well, but we really don’t want to.”
And for those who want to trade a current starting pitcher to make room for more innings for minor league guys, Mozeliak doesn’t think anybody is getting blocked.
“McGreevy is going to be competing for a spot. You could argue some of those spots are already taken by veteran players, but historically some of those players haven’t been able to go pole to pole. I think the depth of what we have in the rotation is something we feel good about and would like to keep that if possible.”
I have personally never heard the phrase “pole to pole” so I am assuming that means stay healthy given the context. Either that or I am misquoting that part. Whatever he said, I am pretty sure it is a phrase that means make every start. He later said “If you go in with five, you’re going to be short.”
This is me speculating, but he clearly feels the young starters will get opportunities and on some level, feel Nolan Arenado being here does not provide the same kind of opportunities for the hitters, though they’d try to make it work.
Regardless, the question mark over whether or not Arenado is traded has impacted the entire offseason.
“It’s the first time in my career that we’re sitting here in January and we’ve literally done nothing for the roster. That part has been an adjustment.”
Nonetheless, he does not view the offseason as a failure and he has to remind himself that it’s not actually over.
“That’s not to say our offseason wasn’t busy, because rethinking our development and new faces and new hires; that takes time. So from that standpoint, I think it’s been a success. Hopefully we start to see returns on that quickly.”
Mozeliak expects that the payroll will eventually go up again.
“I do anticipate at some point, you’ll see payroll go back up. This ownership group understands that payroll does matter in terms of ultimately competing for the big prize and as we do this big reset it allows us to catch up on the development side of things. Hopefully when that’s running full throttle, then we can time the payroll with it.”
Mozeliak has a specific goal in mind before he leaves this organization.
“My ultimate goal is to try to create a pretty clean slate for my successor and the new management team and so tehy would have the ability to do whatever they wanted to do. Obviously you inherit some contracts, but for the most part, I think they’ll have a lot more roster flexibility in the out years and that’s been the goal.”
