A Nolan Arenado trade, even if expected, will come with the unexpected

Anything can happen when you go down the Nolan Arenado rabbit hole.

Six years ago, in February of 2019, Nolan Arenado signed an eight-year, $260 million deal to become the face of the Colorado Rockies franchise. It did not go well.

The contract was based on bad assumptions and false promises, and it quickly produced headaches for all parties involved.

For Arenado, the Rockies couldn’t produce a winning team. Fooled by their brief window of contention in 2017 and 2018 (the only two seasons in the last 14 years in which the Rockies won more than 75 games), Arenado believed he was getting in on the ground floor of something special, signing on to become the pillar of a sustained run of contention in the same uniform and a core piece of a franchise that had finally arrived. It wasn’t true.

In reality, the Rockies had actually just botched their best shot at a deep playoff run in 2018 and were on the verge plunging right back into darkness. Nobody knew it at the time, but Colorado’s contention window was actually already closed before the contract even took effect.

What happened next was a complete disaster. Arenado isn’t the type of guy who will be a happy-go-lucky face of the franchise player regardless of the results on the field. Instead, he’s the guy who will be far more infuriated about the losing when it arrives, particularly if the team becomes complacent about it. Personally, I found this refreshing. The Rockies did not. They thought they’d singed their next Todd Helton, when in reality, they’d actually signed their next Troy Tulowitzki.

So naturally, when there wasn’t a remotely competent team around Arenado, the relationship quickly soured. And worse yet for the Rockies, Arenado had all the leverage. Baked within that eight-year deal was a full no-trade and an opt-out after the 2021 season. So not even two full calendar years into the deal, Colorado had to either move Arenado to a destination of his liking for pennies on the dollar, or risk getting nothing for him after he opted out and walked at the end of the 2021 season.

The Rockies were particularly petrified that Arenado would end up on the Dodgers, so with no leverage, they cooked up a laughable deal in which they sent Arenado to St. Louis for Mateo Gil, Tony Locey, Jake Sommers, Austin Gomber and Elehuris Montero, and also agreed to pay $51 million of the remaining $200 million on Arenado’s contract. (They’re still on the hook for $5 million in 2025 and another $5 million in 2026.)

Arenado, meanwhile, happily agreed to this trade. He saw the Cardinals as a fresh start and a chance to win year in and year out. After all, St. Louis was on a run of 13-straight winning seasons at the time, and hadn’t finished in last place in over 100 years ( 1919). This fit seemed perfect from his perspective.

Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images

But fast forward four years and things have once again gone off script for Arenado and his team. After two solid seasons ending in disappointing early playoff exits in 2021 and 2022, the Cardinals core completely shriveled in 2023 and 2024. Any hope of Arenado being a productive force at the center of the next competitive Cardinals squad is all but dead, leaving him in yet another awkward situation.

But this time, not only is the team down, but Arenado’s production is also down, and to top it all off, it’s happening under the same original Colorado contract, which now has a ninth year attached to it in 2027 after the Cardinals added it in 2021. (There’s a total of $74 million left on the deal, but the Rockies will be eating $10 million of that.)

Complicating matters even further is the fact that the Cardinals tried to send Arenado to Houston earlier this offseason and he blocked the trade. We don’t have a definitive answer as to why he did this, but if I were to speculate on the matter, I believe part of Arenado sees some of his Colorado and St. Louis situations in the Astros. Sure they have a great top of the roster, but the flow of young talent is drying up there, and at this point in his career Arenado doesn’t want to be on another team trending downward. Instead, he wants to be on a club with young talent entering the stage.

This is fascinating on so many levels by itself, but it gets even more interesting when you factor in this being the point in the story where the Red Sox rumors merge into the conversation.

Cutting to the chase, I see two prevailing schools of thought on a potential Arenado to Boston situation from fans:

There’s the anti Arenado crowd who thinks his bat is washed, his contract is an albatross, and his presence would create a domino effect leading to other problems on the roster. They don’t see him as a positive difference maker after what’s happened at the end of his tenure in Colorado and St. Louis.

On the other side of the coin, you have the folks who believe his bat will rebound when you put him back on a competitive team in Fenway, his defense can still make a huge impact, and his roster presence will actually create a helpful domino effect after you make some tough decisions.

Just within the Red Sox twitter community, there’s respected people on both sides of the debate.

And then of course you also have the national media perspective.

This is a whirlwind, and it actually only gets more complicated from here. Just surrounding Arenado himself, you have the following topics to weigh (and I’m only scratching the surface here):

• His swing (Can he rebound? Or is the production just gone?)
• His splits (They vary greatly at different points in his career.)
• His defense (and how it’s actually become underrated in recent years.)
• His contract (What is he worth in relation to it?)
• His leadership ability (Is he a diva or a guy whose competitive edge will make a positive difference with young guys?)
• His roster spot (and the domino effect it instantly creates)

If you want my personal opinion on these matters, here are some quick thoughts:

• Yes, he will rebound, but not back to his prime years.
• Part of the rebound will come from an improvement against lefties.
• Red Sox fans have never seen anything like Arenado’s defense at third base day in and day out. He is, at worst, the third best defensive third baseman of all time, and he still makes a huge impact on games on this side of the ball. This is the thing Sox fans would be most pleasantly surprised about watching him every day.
• His contract is a net negative, but how much of a negative is extremely debatable as there are so many factors at play.
• His presence would be an excellent fit in the Red Sox clubhouse. He brings an edge they’ve lacked the last couple of seasons, and he would thrive in the intense moments at Fenway Park.
• If he takes over third base and forces Devers to DH, this is a good thing for the Red Sox, but it also means somebody else is moving and they have to make a hard decision.

Like pretty much everything with Nolan Arenado, the situation is complicated, layered, and has the potential to range from spectacular to disastrous. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion on these and other topics related to Arenado, but just know that we all probably have at least some part of the equation wrong. Something unexpected is going to come along with any trade involving him. There’s just so much to unpack.

Photo by Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images

Oh, and all of this is before we throw one of the most robust elements into the pot: Any Arenado trade between the Red Sox and Cardinals instantly has the potential to become a much, much bigger deal. Once again, in bullet form:

• The Cardinals have other players the Red Sox could use if Sox want to get extremely bold. This includes catchers Ivan Herrera and Willson Contreras, and Ryan Helsley in the bullpen.
• If an Arenado trade creates a roster domino effect that moves Devers off third and Masataka Yoshida off DH, all sorts of possibilities for displacement open up.
• Chaim Bloom is with the Cardinals. He knows the Red Sox well, and likely has a few favorite pieces within the organization he’d like to grab.
• Both clubs have contracts they want relief from. The Cardinals with Arenado and the Red Sox with Yoshida. This opens the possibility to get creative depending on the pieces involved.
• These teams have likely been passing proposals back and forth relentlessly for the last two months, and this is often how you build bigger deals. The more they talk, the more likely each side is to find pieces the other thinks is undervalued. At that point, it’s just a matter of how big they want to go and how do they balance things off.

Again, the possibilities here are just wild! Any Arenado trade by itself comes with incredible volatility for the reasons and history we’ve already outlined. The journey Arenado’s taken on this contract alone is its own saga.

However, when you then factor in the potential of an Arenado deal ranging anywhere from a salary dump to the foundation of a much, much bigger trade, it quickly becomes apparent that we should expect the unexpected.

Pitchers and catchers may be reporting this week, but one of the biggest offseason deals the Sox have made in recent memory might still be in front of us.