ST LOUIS — Important details must still be sorted out.
But as long as the proper t’s are crossed and the right i’s are dotted, Nolan Arenado is on track toward becoming a St. Louis Cardinal, and the St. Louis Cardinals are on track to returning to the realm of legitimate baseball heavyweights.
At the risk of saying this prematurely . . .
Welcome back.
At the risk of sounding greedy . . .
Why stop here?
Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. sure seems determined to win another ring before his team goes 10 seasons without one, after all.
Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak’s approval rating is about to spike like a Reddit thread told millennials to buy stock.
Cardinals manager Mike Shildt will no longer have to dodge holes as he fills out the heart of his lineup card, and that complementary bat to slugging first baseman Paul Goldschmidt will be paired with defense that is somehow even better at third base than the magic Goldschmidt creates at first. Arenado, a five-time All-Star and eight-time Gold Glove winner, has as many Silver Sluggers as he does Platinum Gloves. Four of each.
Cardinals fans are pinching themselves with one hand and screwing their head back on straight with the other after their favorite team went from depressing them with one of baseball’s most boring offseasons, to flooring them with the move many of them have been daydreaming about for years, made at a time few, if any, saw coming.
Arenado and the Cardinals have always made sense. Like Goldschmidt, Arenado was one of the National League stars both the Cardinals and their fans coveted. His two-way play. His blue-collar approach. His burning desire to win and contend. It was easy to see, even from afar, that the competitive fire that burned bridges between Arenado and Rockies general manager Jeff Bridich would shine so brightly in St. Louis, a city that knows a thing (Larry Walker) or two (Matt Holliday) about becoming a great fit for former Rockies.
Just as Goldschmidt has already played in more postseason games with the Cardinals in two seasons (12 postseason games) than he did with the Diamondbacks through eight seasons (eight postseason games), Arenado should find higher stakes after lowering his elevation. His stellar eight-season career with the Rockies includes just five postseason games, four of which were losses. His lone postseason win was a wild-card victory in 2018. The mind races when one starts to wonder where Goldschmidt and Arenado could help propel the Cardinals now that they will combine talents that have totaled 11 All-Star appearances, 11 Gold Gloves and eight Silver Sluggers since 2013.
This scenario seemed next to impossible not that long ago. The long list of hurdles for an acquisition of Arenado included everything from his no-trade clause, to the whopper of a contract that owed him $199 million through the 2026 season, to that pesky opt-out that was set to arrive after the 2021 season, meaning Arenado could enter free agency then and pursue an entirely new contract with any team of his choosing.
These were familiar topics in the annual Arenado obsession. We all became familiar with Arenado’s contract specifics in previous seasons. Few of us figured we would be reciting them again this offseason. I sure didn’t.
This offseason? How? The Cardinals had spent the cold and quiet months since their wild-card series loss to the Padres trimming payroll when opportunities arrived, preaching patience and downplaying suggestions of big splashes. The Padres and a very small number of other teams were loading up. The Cardinals were one of the many scaling back. It seemed as if they were attempting to find out just how little they could do to have a shot at winning the National League Central before they used expiring contracts and ascending prospects to hit refresh for 2022. Wrong.
The Cardinals managed to pull off a good old fashioned rope-a-dope.
Has it ever felt so good to be fooled?
The coming hours and days will determine what, exactly, the Cardinals gave up to get Arenado, how the complicated deal divides the transfer of money between teams, and how Arenado’s opt-out was adjusted in the negotiations. The details are important, but don't sweat them too much, as long as everything gets approved. The Cardinals will have at least one season to convince Arenado that St. Louis is the place to stay. I would not bet against them when it comes to that recruitment. Arenado and Goldschmidt are close. Former Cardinals slugger Holliday, another friend of Arenado's, has been advocating for an Arenado-Cardinals connection for seasons. Many have said the California product's dream is to one day play for the Dodgers, but let's see if he still feels that way after playing in St. Louis. One way for the Cardinals to increase their chances of keeping Arenado long term, of course, would be to use the time between now and the start of spring training to make a strengthened team even stronger.
That’s the other great part of the trade, as if there needed to be another great part. It did not seem to do much to dent the Cardinals now, or in the future, at least as best as we can tell today. The Rockies’ priority to dump cash seems to have freed the Cardinals from including any of their most prized prospects in the deal. Another way to look at it? The trade is being skewered in Colorado, because the Rockies paid, potentially up to $50 million, to send a star player away in a deal that did not net any of the Cardinals' top prospects.
The details will gain clarity soon enough. The big picture is most important now.
The Cardinals have secured one of baseball’s best players entering his age-30 season, not after it. They withstood blows from the COVID-19 pandemic on the field and at the stadium gates and refused to let the virus convince them to take a season off. They took a look around their lackluster division and said, no, winning against these declining teams is not good enough for us. They brought back Adam Wainwright. They will soon bring back Yadier Molina. They can look those longtime veteran Cardinals in the eye and tell them this team is serious about contending in 2021.
In an era of baseball where competing is optional for many and flat-out frowned upon by some, two kinds of teams now exist. There are teams that trade Arenado, and teams that trade for him. The Cardinals are the latter, and that is worth celebrating. It makes you smile. Wainwright can relate. His grin nearly gave the whole thing away.
As news bubbled up late this week that the Cardinals and Rockies were once again revisiting potential trade scenarios for the player Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt has said could go down as the best third baseman of all time, I urged caution. Don't get your hopes up. Believe it when you see it. And so on. The Cardinals, I stressed, had been down this road before. It usually ended in a dead end. But the hesitation started to fade Friday. Mozeliak seemed to have a revived sense of swagger as he deflected but did not outright dismiss questions about Arenado during the Zoom press conference that was held after Wainwright’s return was finalized. The most obvious tell? It was Wainwright. The pitcher must be lousy at poker. His smile tipped his team's hand.
Wainwright, appearing after Mozeliak on the Zoom call, said he returned to the Cardinals on a one-year deal for $8 million despite more lucrative offers to go elsewhere because he believed the team he made his major league debut for in 2005 has a legitimate shot to compete for for a championship.
What, Wainwright was asked, made the former champion so sure?
“Good question,” Wainwright answered to a question asked by Post-Dispatch colleague Benjamin Hochman, before adding. “I got a feeling there is going to be some goodness happening here. So, yeah. That’s all I’m gonna say.”
Then, he grinned. Big. He knew. Now we do.
Arenado was about to be a Cardinal.
Cross the t’s, dot the i’s, and that’s one heck of a statement made.
