Mozeliak removes all mystery from the Cardinals’ plan for Arenado

The time for insinuations and obfuscation around the future of the St. Louis Cardinals’ headline player has come to an end.

President of baseball operations John Mozeliak said Monday that, “it’s my intention to try” to trade star third baseman Nolan Arenado, setting the stage for an abrupt end to the Cardinals tenure of one of the most gifted defenders in baseball history.

“I think as we try to explore what some options might look like, [we’re] trying to keep him in the loop on how we’re thinking through it and how we’re doing it,” Mozeliak said of the process around trading Arenado. “Nothing’s been written in stone yet, and we both remain optimistic that both parties will end up happy somehow.”

Mozeliak said that he and Arenado met in Colorado, his home state and the place where Arenado began his potentially-Hall-of-Fame career, and discussed the path forward. While he emphasized that Arenado is “not demanding a trade, he’s not telling me I have to do it,” that was the agreed upon path.

“In the interest of both sides, I’d like to try to find him someplace,” Mozeliak said.

While Monday’s admission does not officially wrap up the Arenado era in St. Louis, it is the clearest signal yet of the Cardinals’ commitment to radically altering the look of their roster. Paul Goldschmidt, Arenado’s cornerstone partner at first base for the last four seasons, is a free agent, and the Cardinals are not seeking a reunion.

If indeed Arenado’s stint in St. Louis has reached its end, he departs having won two Gold Gloves, making three All-Star teams, and finishing in third place (behind Goldschmidt’s victory) in the race for the National League Most Valuable Player award in 2022.

Over that same span, the Cardinals made the postseason twice but did not win a game, losing the Wild Card game to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2021 and being swept by the Philadelphia Phillies in the best-of-three Wild Card series in 2022. Arenado recorded only one hit, a single, in 12 at bats spread across those two postseasons.

Mozeliak identified a desire to continue to cut payroll as the heart of the team’s decision to move on from its highest profile star. The Cardinals, he acknowledged, expect a decrease in ticket sales, though he declined to characterize what sort of drop off would be especially problematic for their economics. Uncertainty in the television space resulted in a 23% decrease in their anticipated rights fees from their local broadcast partner, Diamond Sports Group, which operates what is now known as FanDuel Sports Midwest.

FanGraphs’ Roster Resource tool calculates that the Cardinals have already trimmed $23 million from their 2024 payroll. Arenado is due to make $32 million in 2024, offset by a $5 million payment due from the Colorado Rockies as per the terms of the trade which brought Arenado to St. Louis ahead of the 2021 season.

“Trying to, from a financial point, trying to move our payroll,” Mozeliak said. “There’s certainly other ways we can do this, but that would be a big help.

“Financial, but then it also creates runway for someone else,” he added, agreeing that the goal of the 2025 season for the Cardinals is gaining clarity on how their roster construction looks in the future.

The primary beneficiary of the pending opening at third base seems to be lefty slugger Nolan Gorman, who rose through the system as a third baseman after being drafted in 2018 before transitioning to second after the Cardinals acquired Arenado.

Mused Mozeliak about Gorman, “what is he if he gets 550 plate appearances? Is he going to be someone who can put up 35 home runs but still have a strong on base and slug to go with it? Or is it going to be a lot, too much swing and miss? But if he becomes the hitter we believe he’s capable of doing, we think he can be that middle of the order bat.”

“It’s not hard” to find that number of at bats for Gorman, Mozeliak said. “Ultimately, the roster’s just going to have to change a little bit.”

Enter Arenado. Or, more accurately, exit Arenado.

Mozeliak said he doesn’t anticipate completing a trade before he leaves Dallas on Wednesday afternoon, but that he also expects a relatively rapid resolution to the club’s heavy winter lifting.

“I do think over the next week, week and a half,” he said. “I think these things won’t necessarily have to roll into January, but ultimately, I do think our roster will be fluid.”

Part of that fluidity is resultant from the market; this weekend’s signings of Juan Soto and Willy Adames have helped to define needs and availability for teams, and the Cardinals have seen the pace of their trade negotiations increase with that definition. Mozeliak also said the Cardinals could make additions to the roster once their payroll reaches “to where we feel comfortable with it,” but those additions would likely be in the form of depth to supplement the pitching staff.

No realistic addition will outweigh the weight of the coming subtraction. Nolan Arenado arrived in St. Louis with the intention of winning a championship, and he presumably departs having played fewer playoff games as a Cardinal than he did in eight largely futile seasons with the Rockies.

The 2021 trade which brought him to town was heralded as a massive win for the Cardinals, and Colorado received scorn throughout the industry. Then-Rockies general manager Jeff Bridich was fired within months of the deal and has yet to resurface in baseball nearly four years later. Mozeliak, by design, will be departing his current position in less than a year. If Arenado’s arrival came with a joyous bang, the Cardinals are attempting to soften his departure with a dignified whimper.

“In this industry, change happens often,” Mozeliak said. “I understand change for some people can feel like anxiety, scary, disruptive, but sometimes it can be for the better. It’s how you embrace it and how you adjust with it.”