The only thing the Rockies have going for them when they trade Nolan Arenado, the franchise’s best player of the 2010s and his alleged best player of the 2020s, is that Cleveland traded Francisco Lindor last month, so the deal’s deal. Colorado isn’t the most depraved of winters.
But unless you’re a Cardinals fan – in which case congratulations on adding a superstar – it’s hard to find another silver lining.
Just two years after signing Arenado for an eight-year, $ 260 million extension, the Rockies pulled out and shipped him to St. Louis in exchange for swingman Austin Gomber and four lightly touted prospects. The Rockies have also reportedly sent the Cardinals around $ 50 million as part of the deal, which means they’re paying a lot of money to get rid of their best player.
How did MLB end up in such a place that this kind of business is rife?
It’s hard to overstate how much production Arenado has given the Rockies, the only MLB team he’s ever known. Since 2014, his second year in the league, he ranks third among all players positioned in Baseball-Reference WAR, behind only Mike Trout and Mookie Betts. (FanGraphs, who isn’t as high on his defense, places him ninth in that same span.) Fourth on this list, a spot behind the Cardinals’ new third goal? Paul Goldschmidt, another NL West star, became a St. Louis infielder after an off-season trade with the Diamondbacks two winters ago.
On offense, Arenado offers a rare blend of contact ability and power. Most lazy people trade extra withdrawals for extra dingers – but Arenado doesn’t. More than 1,000 players in MLB history have recorded at least 3,000 home plate appearances in their 29-year season. Arenado is only 12th with such high isolated power and such a low strikeout rate, compared to the league backdrop. This list includes some of the greatest hitters of all time:
Ty Cobb Stan Musial Albert Pujols Tris Speaker Shoeless Joe Jackson Joe DiMaggio George Sisler Frank Boulanger «Home Run» Vladimir Guerrero Todd Helton Yogi Berra Nolan Arenado
And in defense, he is even more superb. Arenado won eight Gold Gloves in eight seasons and in 2020, despite struggling attacking, he was as brilliant as ever in the hot corner. He led all MLB players in DRS and UZR and tied for second in the Outs Above Average.
The Cardinals, of course, care less about Arenado’s past accomplishments than what he will do in the future. There’s more reason to worry here, after Arenado fell to a .253 / .303 / .434 cut-off line in 2020, thanks to an early season shoulder injury that has undermined his power before finally sending him to the injured list – his first trip in six years. Yet this underperformance occurred in just 48 games; Arenado has experienced such a severe crisis at some point in almost every season of his career. It’s just that in 2020 his whole season consisted of those 48 games, with no possibility of compensating elsewhere on the schedule.
Concerns about the Arenado Bat’s translation outside Coors Field to hitting-friendly are likely unfounded. There is no evidence that players perform less well after leaving Colorado (see, more recently, DJ LeMahieu in New York). Considering the teams involved, Matt Holliday is the most straightforward comparison for Arenado, and he had higher park-adjusted OPS in eight seasons in St. Louis than in six seasons in Colorado.
So it stands to reason that Arenado will bolster the Cardinals’ defense – which led the majors in defensive points saved last season – and offense, assuming his shoulder strength returns. The Cardinals hit the fewest homers (51) of any team last season, and while that ranking stems in part from all of their doubles in seven pandemic-induced innings, they also trailed in isolated power during one appearance per plate. based. In a division without a clear favorite, Arenado may well provide the advantage St. Louis needs to return to the playoffs.
If this kind of player – an almost 30-year-old two-way star with a long track record – sounds like someone any team would want to keep at all costs, well, let’s figure out why Colorado would want to pay around $ 50 million. dollars to get rid of it.
Just because the Rockies don’t get a bushel of better leads in return. Journalist Jon Heyman noted that 27-year-old Gomber is “seen as the centerpiece” of the deal from a Rocky Mountain perspective; Gomber is also screened for a 4.52 ERA next season (before adding the Coors factor), and he’s walked half the hitters he’s hit in his short MLB career. He never made a list of the top 100 prospects.
There’s no other way to say it, this comeback is incredibly light for a player who was an all-star, golden glove third baseman who finished in the top 8 of the MVP poll for five consecutive years. from 2015-2019.
– JJ Cooper (@ jjcoop36) February 2, 2021
The current Minor Leaguers joining the Colorado system are also not particularly noteworthy:
Infielder Elehuris Montero (16th on FanGraphs Cardinals prospect list at the end of 2020) Right-hander Tony Locey (18th) Infielder Mateo Gil (23rd) Right-hander Jake Sommers (unranked)
And that’s not because the Arenado contract is particularly onerous. Arenado had six years and $ 199 million left on its deal – so, already losing about $ 50 million in trade, Colorado says it wouldn’t want Arenado on a deal of about six years and $ 150 million now. These are the same conditions George Springer just signed in free agency, and Arenado is both younger and a more complete player than the new outfielder from Toronto. Incidentally, FanGraphs is projecting them both for the same War 4.1 in 2020 – and that’s what explains Arenado’s slowdown to the set last season.
Colorado also has no other long-term commitments that would prevent it from paying Arenado for the duration of its deal. Charlie Blackmon and German Marquez (the latter on an incredibly favorable deal for the club) are the only Rockies with guaranteed cash back after 2022.
It’s essentially impossible to predict the fortunes of MLB teams more than a year in advance, but at this point it’s also essentially impossible to see a path to contention for Colorado as it is currently constructed. . The Rockies are short of productive MLB players, ranking 29th in the WAR scheduled for this season before even losing Arenado. They lack exciting prospects, with a farming system ranking 28th according to MLB.com and 27th by Baseball America and FanGraphs. And they lack a proven player development system, with the smallest analysis team of any ball club.
They can now try to redistribute the money they saved from Arenado trade to extend Trevor’s story, if the star shortstop – who is expected to reach free agency after this season – will even consider re-riding with it. such an unfortunate franchise. But the Rockies have just extended their best player – and now we see what happened so soon after, as they developed buyer’s remorse for no good reason.
#Rockies Trevor Story: Nolan is one of my best friends, baseball aside, so it hurts. He’s the best 3B in the game. I’m sad and a little frustrated to be honest. All I can do is focus on making the best possible baseball for my teammates and the fans, they deserve it.
– Patrick Saunders (@psaundersdp) February 2, 2021
Just half a decade after Colorado executed essentially the same move with Troy Tulowitzki – albeit for a better outlook package – it’s all the more a shame because of what it means for fans at the club. The Rockies have been in the top 10 for annual attendance for the past three seasons, attendance was allowed, and not so long ago their fans thought they could cheer on Arenado for the rest of his career. potential for the Hall of Fame.
“Part of me,” Arenado said, “it’s like, ‘Hey, I want to be one of the best Rockies players of all time. “”
Then Arenado and Rockies general manager Jeff Bridich started arguing over front office leadership, and the Rockies fell in the standings after back-to-back playoff spots in 2017 and 2018 – including pushing the Dodgers to a divisional tiebreaker, the closest LA losing the NL West in eight years. The relationship deteriorated so quickly that Arenado gave up his no-trade clause to join the Cardinals.
To woo Arenado, the Cardinals added a few more perks to his contract, including an additional opt-out and an extra year for $ 15 million at the back. There is a possible downside for St. Louis to this deal, mainly if Arenado’s shoulder continues to bother him and limit his once-prodigious power. On the other hand, if Arenado excels, he could retire after 2021 or 2022 – but the Cardinals have caved in so little in the trade that they would probably do well even if they only benefited from Arenado’s services. for a year or two. The club also have a long history of negotiating for All-Star position players – Mark McGwire, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen, Holliday, Goldschmidt – just ahead of their free agency and holding them for the long haul.
In this case, the Cardinals once again benefit from a club NL West that does not want to pay its best player. Even as Goldschmidt collapsed in his first season in St. Louis, he rebounded in 2020 and has led Cardinals-ranked players in WAR since joining. But compared to Goldschmidt with the Diamondbacks, Arenado with the Rockies was supposed to be different. In the same offseason as Goldschmidt’s trade, Colorado reaffirmed its commitment to a franchise leader – only to degrade that bond and trade it at the earliest opportunity, for a shockingly small return.
Two winters ago it was Goldschmidt; last winter, Betts; this winter, Lindor and Arenado and Blake Snell and all Pirates veterans with an ounce of appeal to other teams. MLB is full of teams that don’t want to pay their top players. It’s a rotten trend for sports. It’s extremely rotten for Rockies fans, who are now stuck cheering on a team with no present, no future, and no conviction.
