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Nado and his abrupt power outage is surely one of the great mysteries of the 2024 MLB Season. He is an enigma, no doubt.
He’s not ancient at 33. A slight decline might be expected, but he shouldn’t be washed up at this age…and he’s not!
He still plays really good defense. Not at the level he was at a few years ago, but he’s still very good.
He can still hit. His .271 BA isn’t bad…his 19 doubles are respectable as is his 102 OPS+. His 2.7 fWAR is third on the team and higher than guys like Burly, Hurdy Gurdy, Noot, Goldy, and WilyCon.
What’s holding him back is his complete lack of HR power. 14 Homers with 32 games left? It just doesn’t make sense.
Is this a fluke? Is it an unreported injury? Is it a mental issue?
If he were still a 30 HR guy, he’d have incredible value. So my question…
1. Will the HR power ever come back or is it gone for good?
Thoughts on Nolan Arenado?
Like almost everyone, I was elated when I found out Arenado was going to be the Cardinal 3B’man. My current thoughts on Nolan Arenado are that he’s been a disappointment and I miss Scott Rolen who I belive was the superior baseball player with both the bat and the glove.
Probably not. Arenado has never had great raw power and instead has relied on pulling the ball in the air to hit his HRs. His average exit and max velocity have dropped 3 MPH though and his rate of being able to put the ball over the LF is even decreasing.
I wouldn’t expect Arenado to be a star, but instead I expect him to be a complementary average starter the next couple of years (2ish WAR).
^^^^^^
I think 2.1 bWAR & 2.7 fWAR so far in 2024.I don’t think he’s tradeable, so I’d love to see him get back to 20-25 HR next season. He still gets a lot of base hits.
I understand reasons why players and teams don’t want to discuss something like that, other than obfuscation of some kind. But, fans are who ultimately pays everybody’s salary and the owners profit, so they have skin in the game and deserve a seat at the table. What this means IMO is that if the player and the team choose to not come clean, than fans are entitled to speculate and hypothesize to fill the void, and nobody has any right to complain if they do.
Tough to answer whether Nado gets back to say a 25 homer season in ‘25, or below 20 is the new normal.
I know he has had some back issues and maybe they are impacting his power. If so, and if he can get that resolved he could very well find the power stroke again.
When I see a rare In-person game I watch closely as guys warm up and go through their game preparation. Nado is impressive. He really goes through a lot of stretching and flexibility work. Then with the pregame infield he practices the play where he runs in to field a ball and throw on the run.
He’s a professional and for our team’s sake let’s hope he can regain that power stroke and not lose anything else, as I doubt we can get equal value in a trade.
It seems fairly straightforward. He spent the offseason working on hitting the balls to all fields. About two months into the season, after suffering dismal results in the first two months, he stated he is a pull ball hitter and needs to be pulling the ball more.
Every month of the season his OPS has increased.
Arenado figured out what was wrong, but he can’t undo what he worked on all offseason in a few days.
I hadn’t read he was trying to spread the ball to all fields. I certainly noticed it at the beginning of the season though. It seems he didn’t understand his bread and butter of his offensive profile then while sportswriters out there did.
With a long term free agent contract, you’re looking to break even. In Arenado’s case, he’s nearly been worth his contract already. You just have to ride the golden years knowing you aren’t getting 30M worth of value.
Yeah, he has provided great value and we certainly won big on the deal that brought him here. That’s one deal Mo got right. 🙂
I saw, during a pregame show a couple of weeks ago, what appeared to be a staged clip where Arenado explained that his hitting struggles were caused by ‘the pitching being so much better’. By ‘staged’ I mean that it looked to me like Arenado asked to have a clip made of himself saying that. I have my own opinion as to why Arenado is no longer the hitter that we used to have, but I don’t feel comfortable saying it out loud.
Overall, Arenado has been a disappointment to me. When John Denton tweets he keeps referring to Arenado and Goldy as superstars which is a joke because they are far from it.
Any player is tradable. If the Cardinals ate enough money and Arenado gave the approval I think the Dodgers would take him off of our hands and I would endorse that move.
Again, backfill is not a major reason Arenado would or would not be traded. They could get a 3B in trade, try rookies, use Donovan, trade for one or sign one via free agency. Not that I think there is more than 1-2% chance Arenado will be traded, anyway, assuming the current administration remains in place. But it seems we will have the same discussion every few days all winter, just like we did when some were sure he would opt out… 😉
Arenado has the third highest WAR on the Cardinals.
I don’t get all this talk about trading Arenado:
1) His contract is underwater for anybody who trades for him unless the Cardinals eat a substantial portion of his salary
2) The Cardinals typically don’t eat any salary until a player is in his final year, which is in 2027
3) Arenado seems to have figured out what was causing his issues at the plate. He has an .845 OPS in August, which is roughly career average.Any player is tradable. If the Cardinals ate enough money and Arenado gave the approval I think the Dodgers would take him off of our hands and I would endorse that move
The Cardinals aren’t eating enough money. You must have missed the deadline when it was widely reported the Ownership were hesitant to take on additional payroll dollars due to financial restraints. They did take on payroll but it was about at peanuts as it gets.
Unless you see a 25 homer, 90 RBI, .800 ops potential Renaissance from Arenado. We are stuck with him and if we got that why would we trade him? It would mean we’re likely better on the standings.
As for Arenado’s passion and motivation – if he is indeed not highly motivated that is a change from his days out here. In Denver he was one of the most driven players on the team. He would be on the back fields early in Spring Training working on his defense. He was always striving to be the best he could be.
He is not really all that athletic, and he’s slow. But he has tremendous natural instincts and that and a lot of hard work have made him a great player. He is sort of a latter day Brooks Robinson. Robinson was much the same way – lack of foot speed, but great instinct and quick hands.
Perhaps the motivation has fallen some, but I doubt that as usually guys don’t change their natural personality like that. What I think we are seeing, if anything, is a frustration with his personal performance and the team’s struggles. But more likely it is just misreading him as he is not an overly outspoken guy.
There is a good chance we miss post season again. We have a some over the hill guys that are not going to be part of any future. Marmol and Mo might exit this winter. So a significant enough rebuild to affect Arenado is possible.
Moving Arenado creates a hole at 3B.
I would have Gorman play 3B everyday next year. You may laugh but let’s face it the Cardinals will never be successful as a build from within organization unless their top draft picks produce or the few high dollar external acquistions produce. Right now they are getting neither (Gorman, Walker, Goldy, Arenado), however if forced to choose I would go with the low dollar 24 year old guy instead of the high dollar 33 year old guy. If we are going to lose either way might as well save some money in the process.
The Cardinals aren’t eating enough money. You must have missed the deadline when it was widely reported the Ownership were hesitant to take on additional payroll dollars due to financial restraints.
I am well aware of who the Cardinals owners are and what their playbook is. If the Cardinals send Arenado to the Dodgers/Yankees and pay $10M of his $27M salary in 2025 and $5M of his $22M salary in 2026 they would be saving $34M if my math is correct. How would they be taking on additional dollars?
Just some numbers on Arenado:
Arenado Salary (w/ Rockies money added in)
2021 – $20.6M
2022 – $29.3M
2023 – $19.0M
2024 – $30.0M
2025 – $27.0M
2026 – $22.0M
2027 – $15.0MArenado Value per Fangraphs WAR
2021 – $34.1M
2022 – $57.4M
2023 – $21.4M
2024 – $21.8M (so far)So he is at +$35.8 of excess value already with this remaining:
2025 – $27.0M
2026 – $22.0M
2027 – $15.0MIf he ages gracefully, that’s probably 2.2, 1.7, 1.2 in WAR, which is roughly $40M in WAR value for $64M in salary. On the whole though, he’d be on the positive end for the life of his deal. The Rockies money makes it worthwhile.
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