Nolan Arenado's decline of a Houston renaissance still doesn't sit right
Katie Woo laid it down. What fans picked up is simply weird yet fitting for the mistake-filled front office.
It’s predictable but far from boring. The reason a trade between the Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals for the services of Nolan Arenado didn’t occur, I mean. Via the brilliant Katie Woo of The Athletic, the list of teams and the Houston breakdown was revealed this week. The Dodgers, Yankees, Padres, Red Sox, and Astros were on the list.
Humans like to contradict themselves, though. If Houston was on the list of teams he’d go to, why did he decline? It turns out Arenado wanted more time to see his market unfold and wasn’t sure how “in it to win it” the Astros were after Kyle Tucker leaving. All this time, the secret million dollar question has been his desire to actually be in St. Louis. The awkward spring training interview and this news support a theory that he does… and he also doesn’t.
If they’re on your limited list, accepting a trade would have been wise, no? The Astros may have unloaded Tucker after winning the division, but that doesn’t take them out of the race. Justin Verlander may not come back, but he’s also getting a little long in the tooth. Paul Goldschmidt left a Cardinals team that won 83 games last year and didn’t make any offseason moves, so what appeals about this city to Arenado at this point?
Tucker or Tucker-less, the Astros boosted plenty of virtue for the third baseman. The attention to baseball there isn’t as paramount as it is in St. Louis, due to the freakish Dallas Cowboys and anything football in Texas. The left field wall is always sexy to a right-handed hitter with declining power. The ability to sneak up and win a division and a ticket to the playoffs is much stronger than St. Louis. Houston offers fairer weather than the Midwest.
It’s all just odd and distracting. Having something else to discuss would be nice, but what is that exactly? I could wax on about the wondrous look of Quinn Matthews, but I’m not Kyle Reis and he’s still a puppy prospect. Thomas Saggese is a fine young player who needs about 300 more at-bats in Memphis. The additions made to the team were minimal, with the only one sticking out being the one not made.
Woo’s reporting adds another layer of weirdness to the whole situation. Each side could have been on their weary way by now: Arenado in Houston starting fresh and the Cardinals finally getting to launch the Nolan Gorman at third project. But it won’t happen. The person who stopped it was the guy who direly wants to win… even if he knows this 2025 Cards team most likely won’t.
It all feels like a player making a wound fester instead of applying ointment and a bandage. Arenado ultimately wasn’t sold a bill of goods by Bill DeWitt Jr. and John Mozeliak. Four years ago, they wanted to win and acquired two players and extended a boatload of cash in order to secure the opportunity. Their prospect pipeline dried out, though, and stellar pitching wasn’t acquired.
The Cardinals are a series of unfortunate events and bad decisions. Signing Dexter Fowler, Brett Cecil, and Mike Leake to reactionary moves. Trading premium pitching talent for Marcell Ozuna due to a rejection by Giancarlo Stanton, whom Yankees fans still don’t completely love. Going extra hard for David Price and not Max Scherzer. Pushing chips into the wrong corner.
Overdoing the nostalgia is a foul. The Albert Pujols reunion was great; the Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright finales were not. When the direction became clear to dismantle and reconstruct a new course, Arenado was most likely pissed off at the decision. It wasn’t what he was told in dropping not one but two opt-out clauses. So, I do think he let the knife stay in place this offseason.
He had every right to hold out for the big cities, but they weren’t biting much. Houston was on his list and made sense for both sides, yet he turned it down. Arenado turned it down with a healthy chunk of offseason left to get acclimated in a new city and organization.
I think the need to not make things easy outweighs the vendetta to make things right in St. Louis. He’s not getting any younger and his bat isn’t getting any quicker. Fangraphs has the Astros sitting with a 30% chance to win the AL West division. That sounds a lot better than the 14% chance that St. Louis owns at the moment of this writing.
In summary, the Cardinals were shut out this offseason by a crafty southpaw named No Trade Clause.