When The Los Angeles Times, citing anonymous sources, reported this week that not only were the Dodgers aiming to trade for Nolan Arenado but that the Cardinals’ star third baseman was disgruntled here and willing to drop his no-trade clause to join the Dodgers, it became just a matter of time until Arenado was going to have to say something.
Unlike members of the Cardinals’ no-comment front office, Cardinals players have a harder time ducking reporters during trade-deadline drama at Busch Stadium.
So, after a Friday night loss to the Cubs that would have been heartbreaking if this team wasn’t so broken, Arenado faced the cameras and the recorders.
At first he said he would comment only on the game. He found no takers with those parameters — because of course — so he left the clubhouse. But then he returned and said he had changed his mind. He wanted to get this conversation over with, at least this edition of it.
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Arenado then answered every question that was asked, though some of his responses probably won’t calm Cardinals fans who are fearful his departure to the Dodgers could become a trade-deadline reality.
Could that chance be present (and growing?) because that’s what Arenado wants, or because of how poorly Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak and his front office have handled an ongoing recruitment campaign by the Dodgers? Could it be some of both? Fair questions. Ones with answers that cannot be entirely known at the moment.
What was clear Friday night was a sense of frustration from Arenado. With the losing and with this lost Cardinals season. With this Cardinals-Dodgers chatter. With being asked to be very specific about his updated desires when the Cardinals’ front office stands behind its trade-deadline shield.
Arenado said he has not talked to anyone about if he would or would not drop his no-trade clause. He questioned the origin of reports that say differently. He said the Cardinals have not asked him if he would. He declined to say he would use his no-trade clause to block any deal no matter what, and people will surely read into that. Yes, Arenado could have poured cold water on the whole thing if he said he would not approve a trade to the Dodgers. Whether he stopped short of that because he wants one, or because he wants the Cardinals to play their cards first, was not entirely clear. It's also worth considering that sometimes, when a player knows a team is considering trading him, he begins to feel differently about a no-trade clause.
What was crystal clear, multiple times, is Arenado doesn’t seem thrilled about the current state of communications as this cloud hovers.
“I haven't heard anything yet," Arenado said at one point.
“I haven’t talked to anybody, really,” Arenado said at another point. “So, I don’t know where those reports came from, but when Mo comes up to me and have those conversations, we will have them.”
“Whatever happens happens,” Arenado said at another point. “It’s hard for me to sit here and speak on these things. Like I said, I think the Cardinals, those guys are smart up there, and they’re looking at every way to make this team better. That’s just how I see it.”
Arenado was not hooked up to a lie detector during this time. But if he has been stirring this Dodgers pot from behind the scenes, he’s pulling off a pretty impressive acting job less than a year after suggesting he wanted to be with the Cardinals for the long haul. Now he has pushed his way off a team before, remember. He did it to get here from the Rockies. But he was rather candid during that Colorado process that he was unhappy, that he was clashing with then Colorado general manager Jeff Bridich, that he was wanting out. His answers Friday didn’t sound angry. More agitated. At times, somewhat confused.
“Whatever they (the Cardinals) want,” he said. “I think it’s a business, and they want to find ways to make this team better. So, they’re doing their due diligence about what’s going on and what’s out there. Like I said, if we have those discussions, we will have them.”
If the Cardinals are not going to trade Arenado, the front office has really botched the handling of this thing. Bigger than any of this season’s other mishandlings, other than ignoring the pitching needs that would have made all of this a moot point, considering the Cardinals would be buying instead of trying to learn how to sell on the fly.
The Cardinals’ preferred way of keeping front-office lips zipped through the trade deadline’s end should have been adjusted to consider Arenado’s status, the Dodgers’ status, and the nonstop recruitment of Arenado to Los Angeles that continues to play out, even on the TVs in the Cardinals’ clubhouse lobby, where MLB Network was recently showing where Arenado could slot into the Dodgers’ lineup. The Cardinals have been given multiple chances to squash this. They haven’t. And now Arenado is calling the Cardinals’ front office “they” in his comments. Not great.
If the Cardinals really are willing to trade Arenado, well, then the front-office gag order makes a little more sense.
What would not add up, though, is how the Cardinals could possibly think they could get that kind of trade right and be better off for it — unless their talk about wanting to be good in 2024 has been scrapped for plans of a much bigger rebuild.
Does anyone else get nervous about how the Cardinals would fare against the Dodgers in conversations about which pitchers to prioritize? I do. The Dodgers have become industry leaders in pitching. The Cardinals have been questioning everything they thought they knew about it. If the Dodgers are so rich in pitching prospects who could be very close to helping a team win in 2024, I'm not so sure they would be adding pitching at this trade deadline, like they have been.
It’s hard to see how Mozeliak could trade away one of the two rare definitive wins of his recent roster building — dealing for Paul Goldschmidt being the other one in addition to Arenado — without chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. finally starting to wonder what the heck is going on with this front office. If trading an affordable-contract-holding future Hall of Famer is the answer to addressing a pitching gulch created on the front office’s watch, ownership needs to start having serious questions about this front office. Everyone else already does.
It’s hard to see how a team that would consider trading away 32-year-old Arenado should not also consider trading away 35-year-old Goldschmidt. If you're going to blow it up, blow it up.
It’s hard to see how the Cardinals created a reality in which Arenado is now the only one talking about his future, and doing so while sounding pretty uncertain about what the Cardinals even want. These days, I'm not sure the Cardinals know what they want. You better believe the Dodgers do.
Sports columnists Ben Frederickson and Jeff Gordon want to see the Cardinals' top prospect start getting a feel for his future major league shortstop position after the trade-deadline dust settles. He's electric, and his offense is blooming.
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July 29, 2023 at 09:00PM
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BenFred: Nolan Arenado's trade-deadline comments seem to show cost of Cardinals' 'due diligence' - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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