The Arrival
Nolan Arenado is in camp. That camp, still, is Jupiter.
Credit Christian Gooden of the Post-Dispatch for the picture of the spring so far. The man of the winter coming into camp and, from all indications, doing his best to put the distractions behind him, embracing his manager as he starts another season in Cardinal red.
As expected, Nolan Arenado arrived to camp today and there were a lot of questions for him. Judging from the video (thanks to Brenden Schaeffer for recording it all with quality, even though you know how it pains me to say that), it didn’t seem to reach the levels of Albert Pujols in spring of 2011 or Mark McGwire in the spring of 2010, though someone like Derrick Goold would be the better judge of that as I’m only going off of what the reports were like then. Still, his arrival was an event, even if we could have guessed most of the answers in advance.
If we are going to take anything from this scrum with the assembled media, it might be that Arenado doesn’t really want to talk about it, which is expected given that he’s a ballplayer and he didn’t get into baseball so that he could talk to a bunch of microphones. There were a few other things that were of interest to me, though.
—Arenado said that he tried to stay away from all the talk, though he did say “there were some lies out there”. Always hard to guess what that might be and it could be just referring to opinions generated by folks that thought he really wanted out or that he was pushing the conversation in that direction. I’m sure his agent gave him the overall summary so he didn’t have to worry about it.
—It’s fairly clear that Arenado isn’t thrilled with the direction the Cardinals are going, even if he understands that it is probably the best thing for the organization. He wants to win, something that has been the defining character of his personality, so it’s not surprising that it’s tough for him to be in a situation where that’s not currently the top focus. That said, it doesn’t sound like it’s completely eating at him either.
—He made it clear over and over again that he holds himself at least partly responsible for how things have gone because he needs to be a better ballplayer. It’s a fair thought experiment to wonder what this off-season looks like if he hits more like an average Arenado season last year. Do they win 88 games and make the playoffs? Does that delay this reset? Who knows, but it’s obviously something that he’s taken a little personally and has dedicated himself to getting better on the field. Whether that will take or not remains to be seen, of course. We were told that “an angry Nolan is a scary Nolan” by folks last year but it didn’t really translate to production. Hopefully his winter work will have more of an impact.
—Arenado did make it sound like the trade exploration was initiated by his side rather than the Cardinals, which is a bit different than the impression given by some of John Mozeliak’s comment. Maybe it’s semantics, but it sounded in the past that Mo said, “We’re going this way, do you want us to trade you?” and Nolan makes it sound like Mo said, “We’re going this way” and Nolan said “Well, do you think you could ask around?” Might not matter either way, but it does maybe mean Arenado’s roots in St. Louis weren’t as deep as I’d originally thought.
—The five team report seems to be accurate and it also seems like a list Arenado is going to stick to, in part because it’s not just tied to the success on the field but also the quality of life, location, and other things that play into moving his family to a new location. For instance, the Houston veto might have been more about not wanting his family to live in Texas than anything related to the team and its prospects (though, of course, he didn’t say that). That sort of limitation is his right and I don’t begrudge him that at all, but it does make it much more likely he stays in St. Louis for quite a while. He also said that the list “didn’t really matter anymore” meaning he doesn’t plan to be going anywhere, at least for a while.
—The comfort factor with the organization played a large role in things. He said he is in “the right place” and did a lot of thinking on the flight to Jupiter. If nothing else, that should help him get ready for the season faster than if he had to adjust to a new way of doing things.
—Benjamin Hochman wrote an article about things being “awkward city”. Bernie Miklasz, on the flip side, said things would be too professional to be awkward. Nolan came down on Bernie’s side, saying there wasn’t any awkwardness with the players and coaches and really not much with the front office as well. Which is not too surprising given that it’s not a situation where the player has instigated this demand and has been vocal about it. It’s something that is happening to Arenado more than him causing it.
—One of the few dissonant notes in Arenado’s answers came in response to a question from Jeff Jones, who tried to give Nolan an opportunity to say that his trade market was at least temporary closed, asking if Mo came to him in a month or at any time with a deal, was he open to it? You know how it is, some players say they don’t the distraction of trade talks or of contract negotiations during the season so they ask for that to wait until after the season or something like that.
Arenado dodged the question and not terribly artfully, in my opinion. While I appreciate that he said he didn’t want to think that far ahead, but he said “I can’t focus on things that I can’t control right now.” Yet with that no-trade clause it truly can be something that he can control. If he doesn’t want to move, he can tell Mo not during the season. He doesn’t have the power to make a trade, but he does have the power to not have to deal with trade talk for a while. The fact that he’s not exercising that power makes it more likely he’s not entirely at ease returning to the Cardinals.
So how does this play out? Honestly, probably anti-climatically.
The media is going to continue to talk to Nolan about this for a while, but if nothing changes there’s not going to be a lot to revisit. Games will start and that will give us something else to talk about. It’s not like playing patterns, especially early in spring, mean a lot.
Perhaps this is a different situation than most, but John Mozeliak has often spoken about how hard at least he finds it to trade before July. Given all that goes into this, the limited teams, the contract size, everything, I can’t imagine this is a deal that just happens to come out of nowhere in May. We’ll talk about Nolan’s reception at Opening Day but after that, it’s probably pretty quiet for a while.
If the team plays well, there’s probably less talk of moving him at the trading deadline. If they don’t, things will pick up in intensity around the All-Star Game as Mo makes one last push to take care of it on his watch. However, there’s a strong likelihood that the teams Arenado is interested in will either be set and not interested in taking on such a large addition. I’d say there’s a non-zero chance—I might say even 40% or more—that Arenado finishes the season wearing Cardinal red. If he does that, unless he presses harder this winter for a deal, he might just finish out the contract.
As I’ve said before, I’m glad that Arenado is back on the team and I look forward to seeing him hopefully rebound this year. It’ll also be nice when this is not the only story in town, won’t it?
The stories are starting to develop. Pitchers and catchers are pitching and catching. Batting practice is being taken. We have a game this Saturday to watch. There’s going to be a lot more than the third baseman to focus on and that will be a relief.
Looking forward to talking all of this over with David Jones on Gateway to Baseball Heaven tonight. If you aren’t already a listener, you can find it here or anywhere podcasts are found.
Musial just keeps rocking along. A number of people said how much they enjoyed the chat with Jim Hayes and I had a good time getting to know Lynn Worthy this week.
Spring training games starting means that we’ve got the Twitter games returning as well. #cardsix should have a spring training version this week, assuming I remember to get it done. #bombsaway will be a regular season thing but if you are interested in the #BombSquad membership, we’ll have that out soon as well.
Crisis averted this week as Dayn Perry relented to the will of the mob and didn’t shut down his amazing Birdy Work Substack. I’m very glad that we’ll have his insight continuing over there.
Great stuff, Shop.