THE REDBIRD REVIEW
Alex Bregman has agreed to a free-agent contract with the Red Sox, so Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado won’t be shipping up to Boston. After spring training in Florida, ‘Nado will be skiffing up to St. Louis for his fifth season with the Redbirds. With so many potential trade routes closed off, the gateway back to The Lou remains open.
“I think the mindset right now is he’s likely going to be a part of our club at this point,” president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told baseball reporters on the scene in Jupiter.
When asked if Arenado would be on the St. Louis opening-day roster, Mozeliak responded with, “I definitely feel like it’s a better chance than not.”
That’s an understatement.
The Nolan Arenado saga has gone on for so long, with no imminent resolution in plain sight. So what should Mozeliak do?
If the Cardinals keep Arenado, which seems highly probable at this point, they don’t have to do anything except write his name on the lineup card at the start of the regular season.
Play ball. I’ve been through all of this before, but an update is required after the Bregman news and Mozeliak’s declaration on Arenado. So lets break it down again.
As Tony La Russa would say: play a hard nine.
Nine opinions:
1. There is nothing wrong with Arenado coming back. It is the opposite of that. Even at age 34, he makes the Cardinals a better team and has good value. On that principle alone, there was no good reason for Mozeliak to give Arenado away. And if the Cardinals were (are?) so cranked to play Nolan Gorman at third base and move on from Arenado, then ownership-management should be more willing to eat a bigger portion of the $64 million that remains on Arenado’s contract that runs through the 2027 season. And if they don’t want to do that – if such a scenario arises again – then the Cardinals will be making a clear statement: they prefer to keep Arenado instead of paying someone else a ton of quid to take him in.
2. Last season Arenado accrued 3.4 Wins Above Replacement in his 146 games at third base. a figure that encompasses offense, defense and baserunning. Arenado had the sixth-best WAR among MLB third basemen.
3. Arenado’s elite defense will save runs again. And Cardinals starting pitchers appreciate that. Look at the elevated ground-ball rates cultivated by pitchers that are in the mix for 2025:
* Andre Pallante had the highest GB rate (61.6%) in the majors among MLB starters that worked at least 100 innings last season.
* Rookie Michael McGreevy, a ground-ball machine in the minors, had a 58.6% GB rate in his three starts with the big club in ‘24.
* Top pitching prospect Quinn Mathews had a 47% GB game in the minors last season.
* Veterans Sonny Gray and Miles Mikolas each induced a ground-ball rate of 42 percent last year.
The left side of the STL infield will get to a lot of those grounders in 2025. Last season Arenado was third among MLB third basemen in his range rating, and Masyn Winn ranked ninth in range among all shortstops.
4. Hey, but isn’t Arenado in decline offensively? As a power source, yes. But he still has excellent contact skills. His contact rate on strikes (91.7%) in 2024 was a career high. He doesn’t strike out much. He has a very low percentage of swings and misses. He must reduce his ground-ball rate, but Arenado still pulls plenty of fly balls. He doesn’t hit the ball hard by Statcast standards – but that’s been true through most of his career.
Baseball Prospectus just listed Arenado as a rebound candidate for 2025 and noted: “Arenado has always excelled at pulled fly balls, which has allowed him to get the most out of his fairly pedestrian batted-ball data. That makes him a poor fit for Busch Stadium III, which ranks 22nd for right-handed power over the last three years, per Baseball Savant’s Park Factors.”
That is correct; Busch is definitely a tough yard for RH batters. Except that Arenado slugged .433 at Busch Stadium last season. And his four-year slugging percentage at Busch as a Cardinal is .461. And his slugging percentage over the past two seasons (combined) was higher at home than the road.
Nado’s .433 slug in home games was the team’s second-best among right-handed hitters, with only Winn ahead of him. And in 2024, right-handed hitters (all teams) slugged .387 at Busch – which was 46 percent less than Arenado’s rate. I’m not saying Arenado is Frank Thomas or Harmon Killebrew or anything. But a .433 slug at Busch Stadium tells me there’s life in Arenado’s bat. He had a quicker bat for a couple of months last season and his power numbers increased. The ZiPs forecasts projects a .425 slugging percentage for Nado in ’25. That works.
5. Yo, but what about the Cardinals’ plans for a reset? Once again: there is no reset. So it’s time to stop talking about a reset that doesn’t exist. The group of position players currently on the St. Louis 40-man roster took 82.5 percent of the team’s plate appearances last season. The only lineup regular that’s gone from the 2024 lineup is first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, the new Yankee. And all five of the starting pitchers that are tentatively penciled in the rotation were with the Cardinals in 2024. I don’t see any resetting ‘round here. As I said earlier this week, the Cardinals are reheating what they already have.
And that’s why I have, in recent weeks, used too many words to debunk this endless “reset” twaddle. And without a true commitment to a reset, it makes more sense for the Cardinals to keep Arenado.
Hey, Mozeliak and manager Oli Marmol keep talking about how much they like the ballclub and are touting the Cardinals as a surprise entry in 2025. “The Reset” mission statement has been replaced by the “Exceed Expectations” creed. In that context, Arenado still fits. Here’s another idea: if the Cardinals don’t have the guts to go for a real reset, then bring in some talent to give your team more of a chance to be the Exceed Expectations product that you’re trying to sell to the consumers. Think about the streaming service and the $20 per month fee that you’ll be asking fans to pay. My gosh, the Cardinals have wasted the Arenado years. It isn’t too late to do something about that.
6. Does it make sense for the Cardinals to pay Arenado so much money? If he stays for the final three seasons of his contract, the Cardinals will pay Arenado a yearly average of $21.3 million. According to the Spotrac contract-tracking site, 68 major-league players will make at least $20 million in 2025. Arenado has more value than quite a few dudes on that list. And one other thing: I hear constant complaints about Bill DeWitt Jr. not being willing to spend money. Two points: (A) he spends plenty of money but his front office spends it foolishly and (B) DeWitt is spending money on Arenado … So why would the single-issue obsessives – the spend-spend-spend crowd – criticize DeWitt for paying Arenado? Based on Arenado’s 2024 campaign, he had a performance value of $25 million according to FanGraphs. Besides, the Cardinals got a bargain on the overall contract because the Rockies picked up more than $50 million of the salary costs when they traded him to St. Louis.
7. The Cardinals wanted to start Nolan Gorman at third base. What about that? The question: with Arenado still in the house, can Gorman get the 550 or so plate appearances that Mozeliak wants to see from him in 2025? Other than an injury, I don’t know why Gorman would fall short of that. Gorman can resume playing below-average defense at second base. And if the Cardinals are making Gorman’s presence a top priority in ‘25, they should give him plenty at-bats at designated hitter … and I don’t believe there is a federal, state or St. Louis city law that prohibits Gorman from getting 15 games or so at third base.
I’m not trying to say this is an easy, ideal situation. It is not that. Marmol won’t be able to accommodate every hitter that needs or wants a high volume of at-bats. But a lot of managers have this problem. Marmol will have to find ways to effectively distribute at-bats. If not, the Cardinals will have to trade someone to thin the traffic and then reassess Marmol after the season. This has been a issue / problem under Mozeliak for a long time. You know, the annual roster logjam. A surplus of players at one position — and lacking sufficient talent at another position. Marmol shouldn’t be surprised by any of this.
8. Arenado’s presence will likely force Marmol to revise his thinking on the center-field spot. And that is a positive! Assuming that Brendan Donovan will see a lot more time in left field, the shift gives Marmol the opening to play Lars Nootbaar in center field. And that would upgrade the offense; last season the Cardinals got an embarrassing .209 batting average, a dinky .541 OPS, and only four pathetic four homers in 564 at-bats from the center field spot. Over the past two seasons the Cardinals rank 29th among the 30 teams in center-field offense. And over the past three seasons, they’re 27th in offense from the center-field location.
This is absurd, and it’s time to change it. Getting all goosey about the possibility of Nootbaar getting hurt as a center fielder is diaper-baby stuff; he isn’t made out of porcelain and has to play. What, you want to cover him in bubble wrap? Maybe coat him with a couple layers of foamed polystyrene? And in the Arenado-still-here reality, center field is the best place for Noot’s services. The Cardinals doesn’t have the luxury of starting a defensive specialist in center field. With all due respect to Michael Siani, I’m more concerned about finding room for Victor Scott II in 2025.
9. It’s up to Arenado to come to camp with a gung-ho attitude. And that includes having the extra-extra hungry determination to send a message to the contending teams that had no interest in him. Oh, so you think Arenado is burnt pie? Let him show you. How do you like him now? I don’t think Arenado will jake on his teammates. Arenado’s tank should overflow with energy and motivation. Since Arenado is a Kendrick Lamar fan, please allow me to say this: there’s no need to squabble up here.
(And yes, a cantankerous goat who will be 66 years old in two days is allowed to quote K. Lamar, the Pulitzer Prize winning lyricist.)
If Arenado still fancies the idea of being traded to a contender, he can maximize his chances by playing inspired baseball and being a generous teammate. He can eradicate the negative narratives that surround him. He may not have the home-run power of his younger days — but he’s still a powerful figure for the 2025 Cardinals in what has been a weird transitional period for the franchise.
Interested teams will notice a recommitted, renewed Arenado … interested contenders who need a third baseman will REALLY notice him. And instead of John Mozeliak having to call other teams to initiate trade fruitless discussions on Arenado, those teams will be calling on Mozeliak to initiate the conversations.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
