{"id":94119,"date":"2025-01-19T12:04:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T17:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=94119"},"modified":"2025-01-19T12:04:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T17:04:55","slug":"cardinals-free-agent-trade-arenado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/19\/cardinals-free-agent-trade-arenado\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Agency Moves Unlikely for Cardinals Before a Trade is Finalized"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St. Louis Cardinals are not likely to make any free agency moves until they have clarity on a trade for all-star third baseman Nolan Arenado.<\/a> So far this offseason, the Cardinals are one of the six teams that have not spent any money on an MLB free agent. Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told reporters the team is in a holding pattern.<\/p>\n

Free Agency Moves Unlikely for Cardinals Before a Trade is Finalized<\/h2>\n

Trade is a “Flip of a coin”<\/h3>\n

Mozeliak told reporters on Sunday at a press conference that a trade for Arenado<\/a> is a “flip of a coin.” Katie Woo with The Athletic reported that the free agency market is slowing down the process in an Arenado trade. The Cardinals did have a trade in place to the Houston Astros last month, but Arenado vetoed that trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been very quiet,” Mozeliak told KMOX Radio on January 5th.<\/span><\/p>\n

Presumably, the biggest free agent clogging up an Arenado trade is fellow star third baseman Alex Bregman. Arenado has a full no-trade clause and has named six teams to his “wish list.” If one of those teams signs Bregman, it would further limit Arenado’s trade possibility. The most desired trade partner for the Southern California native is likely the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, that deal is not likely<\/a> for the defending World Series champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of time left, we\u2019ll see how things shake out over the next three to six weeks,” Mozeliak told KMOX.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cardinals are prepared to keep Arenado<\/h3>\n

If no trade materializes before Spring Training, the Cardinals are prepared to keep Arenado on the roster. The team is still motivated to cut payroll, and Arenado still wants to be on a more contending team. However, if nothing mutually beneficial materializes, Arenado will remain on the team for at least the start of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have the ability to find him a place that he desires, that’s something we\u2019re going to try to do,” Mozeliak said on KMOX Radio. “But, if not, he\u2019ll have to be a part of our club moving forward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Arenado is coming off his worst season of his career. The Cardinals were hoping to open up room for younger players<\/a> on the roster, but they will have to find time to get a look at infielders like Thomas Saggese<\/a> and Nolan Gorman<\/a> while still playing Arenado pretty much every game.<\/p>\n

An Uneventful Offseason<\/h3>\n

So far this offseason, the Cardinals have seen nothing but departures. The team has let star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt walk<\/a>, as well as starting pitchers<\/a> Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn<\/a>. Andrew Kittredge, a highly effective set-up man, recently signed\u00a0up after leaving the Cardinals. These have not been met with corresponding additions.<\/p>\n

Mozeliak told reporters he’d like to add some bullpen help<\/a> and a right-handed bat. If the team doesn’t move Arenado, presumably, it won’t be as keen on adding a right-handed bat.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the offseason <\/a>the Cardinals seemed to be more desperate to cut payroll. It seemed they would trade<\/a> some of their higher payroll starting pitchers if they couldn’t get Arenado off the books. However, on Saturday, Mozeliak told reporters they have more flexibility than they did with payroll when the offseason started.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The St. Louis Cardinals are not likely to make any free agency moves until they have clarity on a trade for all-star third baseman Nolan Arenado. So far this offseason, the Cardinals are one of the six teams that have not spent any money on an MLB free agent. Cardinals president of baseball operations John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5111,"featured_media":94135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1071],"tags":[1156,4040,246,3228,1764,92,213,208,168],"class_list":["post-94119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardinals","category-mlb","tag-alex-bregman","tag-andrew-kittredge","tag-houston-astros","tag-kyle-gibson","tag-lance-lynn","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-nolan-arenado","tag-paul-goldschmidt","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94119"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94136,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94119\/revisions\/94136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}