Who Is Nolan Arenado Anymore, and How Can He Be Traded?

I want to start off by saying that I was devastated — devastated — to learn that Nolan Arenado reportedly vetoed a trade to the Houston Astros. I guess it would’ve made some baseball sense, as Alex Bregman’s departure leaves a vacancy at third base, and new acquisition Isaac Paredes could easily slide across the diamond to first. Plus, Arenado is a three-time National League home run leader with a long history of hitting the ball in the air and to the pull side. Surely he’d find something to like about the Crawford Boxes.

But mostly, I wanted this to happen because I had a joke lined up.

In my time at FanGraphs, I’ve developed a reputation for stretching the limits of taste and sense in display copy. Usually, after I produce a particularly odious pun, someone will respond: “How long have you been sitting on that one?” Believe it or not, the answer is almost always a matter of minutes. I strive to make bespoke, handcrafted groaners and forehead-slappers fresh to order.

But on rare occasions, I do write a pun in advance and hold it back until the right moment. This is not how I usually work, mostly because I lack the necessary patience and restraint. Like a toddler who’s proud of the worm he picked up off the sidewalk, I usually want to share what I’ve got right now.

So when I tell you I’ve been waiting on the right moment to use “National Arenadics and Space Administration” for 10 full years, I want you to appreciate how much effort that took. And they teased me, dangled the possibility of Arenado playing in Houston, mere miles from the Johnson Spaceflight Center, for a team with a space-derived nickname… and then Arenado himself snatched it away.

I am disconsolate. Please hold all my calls.

Even without the hilarious NASA joke, Arenado has been one of the most-discussed players this offseason, because the Cardinals sure seem eager to move him. A mere 24 months ago, that would’ve been no problem. Arenado was 31, coming off a season of a 149 wRC+ and 7.2 WAR, both career highs.

And “career high” means more for Arenado than it does for most players. In addition to his offensive accomplishments, he started his career with 10 straight Gold Glove seasons, earning 44.8 WAR through 2022. A 31-year-old with that CV becomes a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame with any kind of reasonable hang-around phase.

Unfortunately, age does to baseball players what national expansion does to regional fast food chains. Arenado is currently two-thirds of the way through a nine-year, $275 million contract that started in 2019. Compare Arenado’s performance during his last four full seasons in Colorado — which are representative of the player he was when he earned that contract — to his first two seasons in St. Louis, to his most recent two seasons.

It still says Hoagiefest on the sign, but you and I both know that the quality of the bread went in the crapper when Wawa started opening stores in Florida. Similarly, it still says Arenado on the jersey, but the numbers are much more Joey Ortiz-y.

Arenado is still a good defender, but no longer the guy who drew comparisons to Scott Rolen and Brooks Robinson. More worryingly, the power that made him a star in Colorado is going, going gone. Even after moving from the arid, thin air of Denver to the muggy, thick atmosphere of Mark Twain Country, Arenado hit 34 homers in 2021 and 30 in 2022. Then 26 in 2023, and only 16 in the campaign that just ended.

A one-year blip? I think not. In 2024, 42 third basemen logged at least 300 plate appearances in the majors. Arenado was 36th in HardHit%, one spot behind Ildemaro Vargas and just two spots ahead of Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Now, Paredes was 40th among third basemen in HardHit%, and I just wrote that he could hit 30 homers next year. This is based Paredes’ batted ball profile being well suited to a home park where the left field wall is so close the batter can smell what the fans in the first row of the Crawford Boxes are eating. So maybe Arenado could do something similar.

There’s some of that in Arenado’s game. Paredes was first among qualified hitters in pull rate on fly balls in 2024; Arenado was 19th. But it’s more likely than not that Arenado’s last 30-homer season is already in the past. Whichever team trades for him is getting an average hitter who defends the position well and doesn’t strike out much, but not an MVP candidate.

As motivated as the Cardinals are to get off of Arenado’s contract before everyone finds out about this development, they are apparently willing to make allowances. In their report on Arenado’s veto of a trade to the Astros, Mark Feinsand, John Denton, and Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reported that the Cardinals are willing to pay down some — but not all — of Arenado’s remaining contract.

The sticker price of those three years is $74 million: $32 million in 2025, $27 million in 2026, and $15 million in 2027, with $12 million of that deferred. The Rockies are already responsible for $5 million in each of the next two seasons, by virtue of the trade that sent Arenado to St. Louis in the first place. And according to the MLB.com report, the Cardinals were willing to send between $15 million and $20 million to Houston to soften the blow.

All told, that lowers the practical cost of Arenado’s contract to somewhere in the low $40 million range over three years. If Arenado’s an average third baseman over that time, that’s a positive-value proposition.

So the Astros seemed to think, but unfortunately, Arenado didn’t want to go there. Denton reported during the Winter Meetings that Arenado has six teams on his… I guess you could call it a Yes-Trade List. Those six: The Dodgers, Padres, Angels, Phillies, Mets, and Red Sox.

The Padres and Red Sox are extremely, extremely set at third base for the next three seasons. The Phillies also have an incumbent All-Star at third, Alec Bohm, and even though he’s become the fall guy for their first-round exit, Bohm is better and cheaper than Arenado. I don’t see the Phillies adding Arenado unless Bohm gets traded first. Max Muncy probably wouldn’t be playing third base for the Dodgers in an ideal world, but with Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the lineup, that’s where Muncy will remain. The Angels have Anthony Rendon under contract for two more seasons — as much as they’ve tried to make him vanish through telekinesis — though his injury history and indifferent production when healthy makes Arenado a more plausible addition there.

That’s probably why Arenado has reportedly volunteered to move to first base in order to facilitate a trade. But there’s no point in trading for Arenado at all if he were only going to play first base. A 104 wRC+ is acceptable for a third baseman, especially a good defender. Not so much for a first baseman. Especially not at a cost of $15 million a year, plus the prospects required to acquire him.

So the window of possibilities for an Arenado trade currently requires one of the following: The Phillies trade Bohm; the Mets move Mark Vientos to first base and don’t re-sign Pete Alonso; the Red Sox move Rafael Devers to first, which would require trading at least one of Triston Casas or Masataka Yoshida; or for the Angels to give up on Rendon.

There are multiple outs, but each of them requires supplementary moves — in some cases, a pretty significant roster shakeup for a team with limited trade capital — and Arenado really isn’t the kind of player you move heaven and earth to acquire anymore. That’s on top of the salary commitment, which is substantial even if the Cardinals and Rockies are chipping in, plus the prospects necessary to make the trade in the first place. (Assuming this isn’t a straight salary dump like the Cody Bellinger trade.)

Seems like it’d just be easier to sign Bregman.

Arenado worked hard to put himself in a position to ask for that no-trade clause in the first place, and he’s entitled to use it however he sees fit. But getting him out of St. Louis was going to require a fair bit of needle-threading even under ideal circumstances, and I don’t see a path forward unless he opens up his list. Which, for the record, is what I think will happen.

So maybe hope is not dead, and I’ll get to use that NASA joke after all.

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