Arenado trade returns good times to Cards
ST LOUIS — Important details must still be sorted out.
But as long as the proper t’s are crossed and the right i’s are dotted, Nolan Arenado is on track toward becoming a St. Louis Cardinal, and the St. Louis Cardinals are on track to returning to the realm of legitimate baseball heavyweights.
At the risk of saying this prematurely …
Welcome back.
At the risk of sounding greedy … Why stop here? Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. sure seems determined to win another ring before his team goes 10 seasons without one, after all.
Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak’s approval rating is about to spike like a Reddit thread told millennials to buy stock.
Cardinals Manager Mike Shildt will no longer have to dodge holes as he fills out the heart of his lineup card, and that complementary bat to slugging first baseman Paul Goldschmidt will be paired with defense that is somehow even better at third base than the magic Goldschmidt creates at first. Arenado, a five-time All-Star and eight-time Gold Glove winner, has as many Silver Sluggers as he does Platinum Gloves. Four of each.
Cardinals fans are pinching themselves with one hand and screwing their head back on straight with the other after their favorite team went from depressing them with one of baseball’s most boring offseasons to flooring them with the move many have been daydreaming about for years.
Arenado and the Cardinals have always made sense. Like Goldschmidt, Arenado was one of the National League stars both the Cardinals and their fans coveted. His two-way play. His blue-collar approach. His burning desire to win and contend.
Just as Goldschmidt has already played in more postseason games with the Cardinals in two seasons (12 postseason games) than he did with the Diamondbacks through eight seasons (eight postseason games), Arenado should find higher stakes after lowering his elevation. His stellar eight-season career with the Rockies includes just five postseason games, four of which were losses.
The Cardinals had spent the cold and quiet months since their wild-card series loss to the Padres trimming payroll when opportunities arrived, preaching patience and downplaying suggestions of big splashes. The Padres and a very small number of other teams were loading up. The Cardinals were one of the many scaling back.
It seemed as if they were attempting to find out just how little they could do to have a shot at winning the National League Central before they used expiring contracts and ascending prospects to hit refresh for 2022. Wrong.
The Cardinals managed to pull off a good old fashioned rope-adope.
Has it ever felt so good to be fooled?
The Cardinals have secured one of baseball’s best players entering his age-30 season, not after it. They withstood blows from the covid-19 pandemic on the field and at the stadium gates and refused to let the virus convince them to take a season off. They took a look around their lackluster division and said, no, winning against these declining teams is not good enough for us.
They brought back Adam Wainwright. They will soon bring back Yadier Molina. They can look those longtime veteran Cardinals in the eye and tell them this team is serious about contending in 2021.
In an era of baseball where competing is optional for many and flatout frowned upon by some, two kinds of teams now exist. There are teams that trade Arenado, and teams that trade for him. The Cardinals are the latter, and that is worth celebrating.
It makes you smile. Wainwright can relate. His grin nearly gave the whole thing away.
Wainwright, appearing after Mozeliak on a Zoom call Friday, said he returned to the Cardinals on a one-year deal for $8 million despite more lucrative offers to go elsewhere because he believed the team he made his major-league debut for in 2005 has a legitimate shot to compete for a championship.
What, Wainwright was asked, made the former champion so sure?
“Good question,” Wainwright answered, before adding. “I got a feeling there is going to be some goodness happening here. So, yeah. That’s all I’m gonna say.”
Then, he grinned. Big. He knew. Now we do.
Arenado was about to be a Cardinal.