St. Louis Cardinals: Revisiting the Nolan Arenado trade

Nolan Arenado went from the Colorado Rockies to the St. Louis Cardinals on Feb. 1 in a deal that not only cost the Rockies their All Star third baseman plus his 2021 salary but also Colorado’s general manager. The Rockies parted ways with Jeff Bridich in April in an obvious fallout from both the trade and Bridich’s handling of Arenado.

A general manager can be replaced, but an All Star third baseman is a tougher commodity to come by. In the immediate aftermath of the trade, which grew out of Arenado’s dissatisfaction with the Rockies’ efforts to build a contender around him, the widespread assessment was that the Cardinals had fleeced Colorado big-time.

Revisiting the Nolan Arenado trade to the St. Louis Cardinals

More than two months into the season, the perception of the deal’s fundaments hasn’t changed all that much. Arenado is batting .287 with 11 home runs and an .855 OPS, figures that are very much in line with his career norms.

What may be changing is the perception of the trade’s impact on the Cardinals’ broader pennant hopes. St. Louis entered play Monday having lost five straight and seven of eight, and having ceded both first and second places in the NL Central to the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers.

Even with Arenado, the Cardinals offense ranks lower half in the NL in both runs per game and batting average, while the pitching has been similarly ordinary. It is becoming fair to wonder whether Arenado forced himself away from one low-expectations team only to land on another.

To get Arenado, the Cardinals parted ways with one major leaguer, pitcher Austin Gomber, plus four minor league prospects.

Even given the questionable state of Cardinal pitching, it would be hard to argue that Gomber’s loss is a big deal. He was never projected to be more of a complementary piece, and is pitching exactly that way in Denver. Through his first dozen starts, Gomber is 4-5 with a 4.12 ERA.

The good news is that makes him a reliable starter by Rockies standards. The bad news is that isn’t saying much. Colorado ranks third from the bottom in both runs allowed per game and ERA.

If the Rockies are to reap any benefit from this deal, Elehuris Montero is the most likely guy to produce it. One of the four prospects returned to Colorado from the Cardinals system, he’s Colorado’s ninth rated prospect, and is producing at a .767 OPS at AA Hartford with six home runs.

A shortstop, Montero is given a chance to hit the big time as early as this season, a timeline that could be accelerated if the Rockies decide to dump the team’s other star, free agent-to-be Trevor Story, at the trade deadline.

The other three prospects involved in the deal were pitchers Tony Locey and Jake Sommers and infielder Mateo Gil. Gil and Locey are both at Low A Fresno while Sommers is, for the present, assigned to rookie ball.

This assessment of Arenado’s impact on the Cardinals has thus far been limited to the short-term side. That’s only fair; St. Louis is a “win now” team in a “win now’ season. But the long-term aspects of the trade cannot be overlooked. The facts are that Arenado is in the midst of a long-term contract that now marries him to the Cardinals through 2027, his age 36 season. He will make $179 million between 2022 and 2027, and all of that will be paid by St. Louis.

If the Cardinals do not ride Arenado to a pennant this year – and they obviously are solidly in the NL Central race – then the follow-up question becomes the point at which his production begins to decline. He is 30 and on pace to generate about a 6.0 WAR this year, a figure that would be in keeping with his average star-level production to date.

Given his age, he can also project to continue to be approximately that useful for two or three more seasons. That, then, becomes the window within which the Cardinals need to cash in on what was perceived to be a steal when the trade went down in February.

That is a generous amount of time but not unlimited. And what is really coming into clarity as the season wends along is that St. Louis actually only filled one of its glaring needs by landing Arenado. The broader issues remain on offense, defense and pitching. His arrival may have given the St. Louis Cardinals a chance, but it did not transform them into anything approaching a sure thing.