Not Rollin' On Nolan

Unlike Mark Antony, I come to praise Nolan Arenado, not to bury him.

It has been a remarkably quiet winter when measured by the activity of the Cardinals. Players have slipped away, their contracts expired or their options not picked up. A couple of 40-man players have been claimed. The front office has been beefed up. Other than that, there’s only been one real topic.

Nolan Arenado.

John Mozeliak had said at the end of the year press conference that payroll was going to go down and the club would talk to the guys on long-term contracts (Arenado, Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras, Miles Mikolas) and see their thoughts about moving on. Gray and Contreras, of course, made a point of wanting to stay and see this rebuild/reset/redo through. Mikolas also, eventually, said the same, though it seems pretty likely there wasn’t any market for his services anyway.

That leaves Nolan, which means that is where everyone’s attention has been focused all winter long.

Given that there’s nothing else going on, everyone has opinions on the whole situation and those opinions seem to have strengthened as time has gone on. It feels like a large section of the fan base is ready to move on, almost to the point of blaming him for the whole thing.

I don’t think that’s a fair take. I can completely understand the position that the playing time freed up by an Arenado trade would be beneficial to the Cardinals. However, the idea that this has to be done, that people are fed up with the whole process, that this winter is a failure if he stays on the club seems to me misguided. I don’t know how many are that extreme, in fairness, but it seems a lot of passive brickbats have gone in his direction.

After all, when was the last time the front office spent any time, much less as much as we’ve seen here, talking about trading a player? Even when the club was rolling up to the 2023 trade deadline there was less discussion about Jack Flaherty, for instance. Mo famously said that “we’re going to trade people” and everyone knew people like Flaherty were going out the door, but I don’t remember a lot of specific call-outs.

Yet this winter it’s all Mo can talk about. For a while there, he was even almost guilting Arenado, saying that if the third baseman didn’t get traded that other players would have to be so that the money could work. Settling with Diamond Sports has seemed to put that to bed, as Bill DeWitt Jr. reiterated this past weekend at Winter Warm Up, but there’s still a strong desire for Nolan Arenado to be an ex-Cardinal by those that just four years ago were feverishly working to get him into their uniform.

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Why isn’t there more appreciation for Arenado?

Derrick Goold has pointed this out a few times and I think it’s an excellent point. We as fans usually take to heart those that embrace being a Cardinal. Arenado actively maneuvered his way out of Colorado with only one (well, maybe two but the Dodgers weren’t interested) possible destination. He had two chances to opt out of his contract, including after the 2022 season when he was third in the MVP voting and would have likely commanded much more than his already-big contract on the open market. Both times, he’s shown his desire to stay in St. Louis by not even going through the formality of hitting free agency.

Then, this winter, he turned down a trade to a Houston team that, granted, might have its issues but is still going to be a much likelier playoff contender than the Cardinals. While we don’t know all the reasons that led to him exercising his no-trade clause, at least part of it must be that he has no pressing desire to leave St. Louis.

After all, none of this was his idea. Mozeliak was the one that came to Nolan asking about his openness to moving on. If the club hadn’t done that, would we be having this talk? To some degree, when your boss says, “Hey, you ever thought about not being here,” it would be easy to take that personally. Obviously it didn’t impact Gray and Contreras, but I can easily see why, even if you hadn’t wanted to leave, you’d consider it when attitudes toward you from your bosses shifted.

Anyway, Arenado has shown time and again that he wants to be a Cardinal. Yet instead of people rallying to his side, they are holding the door open for him.

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Granted, two down years of production will cool any flame. 2023 and 2024 are not years that will show up in Arenado’s highlight reel or be highlighted on his likely Hall of Fame plaque. Yet according to Baseball-Reference, he was the fourth most valuable hitter and fifth most valuable player measured by their WAR calculations. (Only Ryan Helsley topped him on the pitching side, while Masyn Winn, Contreras, and, by a tenth of a point, Brendon Donovan had him on the offensive side.) He was tied for fourth in 2023.

Part of that is the struggles around him, of course. 2.5 and 2.4 bWAR are his two lowest full-season marks, so it’s not like he’s really living up to the contract. Still, there’s a non-zero chance that moving on from Arenado makes the team worse, at least in the short-run.

It’s not the same thing, of course, but I think about how Yadier Molina’s career ended. The last six seasons he put up bWAR of less than 2.0, yet few wanted to move on from him until he was ready. Granted, he was a homegrown player that had built up a lot more goodwill than Arenado has, so it’s a bit of apples to oranges, but I still think it’s somewhat instructive.

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Again, I understand why it makes sense for Arenado to move on, because his presence would put a significant crimp in trying to find out what they have in some of these young guys that they have not done a great job developing. If Arenado is here, Nolan Gorman probably plays second, which means that Thomas Saggase’s playing time is significantly reduced and Donovan has to go to the outfield. If he goes to the outfield, Lars Nootbaar probably has to find some time in center field, which puts a crimp into (hopefully) Victor Scott II getting a foothold in the big leagues. You do have the DH, but you figure they’ll want to use that mainly for Alec Burleson.

While you can still make it work, especially if you cut into Arenado’s regular 625 plate appearances, it’s a difficult ask. Yet I still bristle a bit at casting off Arenado so abruptly. I know it’s my personal bias, as I’ve been a fan of his since his Colorado days, but it also rubs me the wrong way to see the Cards be so open about wanting to cut ties with a player that very well may be at third come Opening Day.

It also should be noted that Arenado hasn’t done anything to aggravate the situation. He’s not given any media interviews. He didn’t come to Winter Warm Up and cause any awkwardness. He didn’t agree to the first thing set before him, but that was his right. It will be very interesting to see how he approaches the beginning of spring training if he’s reporting to Jupiter.

I hope that, if he does get traded, that his time in St. Louis will be looked at fondly by fans both now and in the future. I don’t know if his four years are enough to get him a red jacket, though I wouldn’t be surprised. I just wish there were fewer fans excited about his departure.

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It’s been a great start to Meet Me at Musial’s 11th season. Jeff Jones kicked it off, Brenden Schaeffer came on so we could throw jibes at each other, and then this past week I finally got the chance to sit down and talk with the legend Bernie Miklasz. All of these conversations have been a lot of fun and have helped pass the quiet winter. I’ve got guests lined up all the way from here to the end of May, with Matt Pauley from KMOX coming on this week and the always fabulous Katie Woo the last week of the month. Give the shows a listen if you haven’t and I always appreciate when people rate and/or review it on their podcast platform.

You may have also noticed that the site title has changed. When I set up the Substack, I thought that it would be a place where I put up things that didn’t really work at the blog. So, given the title at the other place, it felt right to reference taking some batting practice. However, since all of my writing has shifted here except for series like Exit Interviews (which would drive you crazy with 50-plus posts in a short span of time), it seemed like I should bring over the name that I’ve used since I started writing 17 1/2 years ago.

Skeleton Crew has wrapped up and I think it’s safe to say it was possibly the most fun Star Wars we’ve had in a while. It didn’t tie in to any other stories, didn’t add significantly to the lore or leave things that have to be picked up. If it stands alone, it’ll be a great one to rewatch. If it gets a second season, that will be pretty great as well. Now just 13 weeks until the second season of Andor gets started. I don’t know that “fun” will be thrown around there, but it’s sure to be a good time.

Also, tax season is about to kick off. For me, it doesn’t really start until the middle of February when everyone has their documents and start bringing things in. I will say, if you are looking for someone to do your taxes, I’d be glad to help out. We have clients in quite a number of different states.

I see that CBS has a show called Watson coming out, but it looks more like House than Elementary. Which is too bad. I’d definitely be up for a return of Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu in those roles.

If anyone is trying to avoid the social media circuit—and given how much politics has infected almost everything, I can’t blame you—come join us on our Discord server. Lots of channels to choose from and none of them are political. We’d love to have you talk some Cardinals.