Arenado looks ahead to 2019
Winning is bottom line for future free agent
SAN FRANCISCO – While the baseball world laments not seeing the game’s greatest player perform on the biggest stage in October, forgotten is that Mike Trout once played in the postseason. It was in 2014 when the Angels won the American League West Division, only to go three-and-out against the Royals.
There’s precious little sympathy in that regard for Nolan Arenado.
His entire postseason experience lasted a mere 3 hours, 54 seconds, the time it took for his Rockies to succumb in last year’s National League wild-card game against the Diamondbacks.
Arenado is one of the finest allaround players in the game, hitting .306 with 20 home runs, 57 RBI and a .974 OPS going into Sunday, headed to his fourth consecutive All-Star Game and arguably the greatest defensive third baseman in history.
He is the only infielder in Major League Baseball history to win a Gold Glove in his first five seasons. He’s only the second player, joining Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx, to have three seasons with 35 homers and 130 RBI before turning 27. And he is only the third baseman to produce at least 80 extra-base hits in three seasons.
Yet unless something changes for the fourth-place Rockies in the second half, Arenado’s and Trout’s seasons could be ending on the same day.
Again.
“I don’t want to lose anymore. I just hate it,” Arenado, 27, tells USA TODAY. “It’s tough on you. I’ve only been to the playoffs once, and it was only one game and then it’s gone. We got kicked out quick.
“I want to win a division so we actually play a series. I see the Dodgers, and the guys over there, and they’ve won this division the last five years. I know some of the Giants players. They’ve got their World Series rings. I’m jealous.”
The looming $250 million-plus question is whether he’ll have to venture outside the Mountain time zone to enhance his chances of playing in October.
Arenado, as the Rockies organization painfully is aware, is eligible for free agency in 15 months.
He’ll be the pre-eminent player of the 2019 free agent class, featuring Astros All-Star starters Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander, World Series hero Madison Bumgarner, prized shortstops Xander Bogaerts and Didi Gregorius, All-Star outfielder Marcell Ozuna and second baseman Scooter Gennett.
Arenado says he’s open to any conversation this offseason about extending his stay in Colorado but makes it clear the opportunity to win means more than a couple of decimal points in his contract.
“Look, I’ve lost every year I’ve been here,” he says. “Winning is the No. 1 thing for me, and I’m only getting older.
“I thought this might be our year because there was a lot of excitement. Of all the years I’ve been here, we never really had expectations before. This time we did. So I see the culture changing here, how we’re trying to win, but it just hasn’t happened.”
He will keep close tabs this offseason on Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, the free agent duo who both could exceed Giancarlo Stanton’s $325 million deal as the richest in the game.
He doesn’t believe he’ll equal the Harper/Machado jackpot, considering he’s 21⁄ years older than the two of them,
2 but then again, along with veteran Adrian Beltre of the Rangers, he’s one of the greatest third basemen to come along since Hall of Famers George Brett and Mike Schmidt, with neither testing free agency.
“Absolutely, I’m interested in seeing what happens to those guys this winter,” Arenado says. “It’s going to be fascinating to how it’s all going to play out. It’s cool because they’re so young going into the free agent class, and it’s safe to say our free agent class will try to feed off theirs.
“I’m not here to say that whatever they get I’m going to get. Those guys are younger. I don’t expect to get the numbers they get. But as a fan of baseball, it will be cool to see what happens. I’ll sit back this winter and watch like everybody else.”
The Rockies and Arenado have had several conversations over the years about a long-term extension, but nothing serious in the past year.
“If they want to talk and come at me this winter, they can,” Arenado says. “But at the end of the day, none of that has happened yet. I’m not even going to think about it unless they want to talk.
“I won’t be the one to start the dialogue.”
Certainly, the Rockies intend to have contract discussions. Arenado, earning $17.75 million in the second year of a two-year, $29.5 million deal, doesn’t have a contract for 2019 and is eligible for salary arbitration.
“It’s not like this is sneaking up on anybody,” Rockies GM Jeff Bridich said. “Everybody knows, right? These things have been dissected so much ad nauseam and overanalyzed. We’ve had conversations over a long period of time, and there’s no rush to force anything now.
“If there were any issues with communication or we had breakdowns about this stuff, it would be different. But there’s been none of that. Everything’s been natural and easy.”
Bridich, too, will be curious to see how much Machado and Harper make in free agency and whether it will impact Arenado’s next contract but says it’s silly to waste any time thinking about it now.
“It’s incredible the amount of brain cells that are being burned on this now,” Bridich says. “There’s been so much guessing and prognosticating. We are games and games and games and months and months and months away from any sort of activity or decisionmaking.
“People think it’s a foregone conclusion that Harper and Machado will get this or that. I don’t know. There were a lot of free agents who thought they were going to get certain X dollars this past offseason, and it didn’t work out. So I don’t know. Right now we don’t put a whole lot of thought into that.
“All I know is that whether it’s Nolan or anybody else, winning is one of the best natural recruiters of them all.”
If the Rockies, 41-42 going into Sunday, can win, it might change the entire dialogue this offseason. If another season slips away and Arenado’s walk year looms, it will only accelerate the momentum that might push him out of Denver.
“For the first time to have a say-so where he wants to play,” says Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon, who signed a six-year, $108 million extension in April, “I’m not surprised that winning is important to him. It was important to me when I chose to come back here. Your quality of life is so much better when you’re winning.
“Nolan is such a great player. He’s going to have a huge effect on pretty much any team he’s going to play on.
“I just hope it’s here.”