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The Angels have a couple young starters who bombed at the MLB level. Kind of strange that they rushed these kids. 2 starters went from AA to the bigs.
LACardFan
I really only see one fit for an Arenado trade this year, and that is to the Angels. And, yes, I believe the Cardinals would have to take a bad contract back. But yes, it puts the Cardinals in a more advantageous position.The Angels are already paying $38 million for Anthony Rendon. They are not looking to add another $19 million for a one WAR upgrade just so Arenado can play close to home. But if the Cardinals take back the contract of Jorge Soler ($16 million according to Cots), they are exchanging two years / $34 million of Arenado for one year/$16 million of Soler.
I mentioned Soler back in September. This is the easiest path to an Arenado trade. Soler can be penciled in as the RH option for DH and corner outfield. He’s had a 114 OPS+ over the last 3 years and an .860 OPS vs LH pitching in his career.
BTV has Soler at -6.1 in value and Arenado at -15.1. Arenado has $38M remaining over 2 years and Soler has $16M. So Arenado plus $10M likely gets it done.
PadsSF, both BR and Fangraphs have Soler’s 2025 as below replacement level. BTV’s -6.1, looks like -16mil to me, but there’s more than -16mil in Nado’s contract.
Stephenson is slotted at co-closer on an 11mil salary. He has to be available, and not IL, but he also has the trade chip upside Soler doesn’t look to have, for us. We are in rent-a-closer territory with the roster anyway.
Following your easiest path approach, aquiring both of Stephenson/Soler is 27mil of Nado’s 35mil, Bill reclaims 8mil and turns a 2yr Nado contract into a deadline closer chip? Or two DFA’s. Mutual dumps are just that. Could also tell Soler not to pack for STL 😀
The flip side to Soler not packing is him as a DH placeholder, until Noot is available. My roster has Herrera in LF today and I’d expect his D to be better than Soler’s OF D. Could let it play out on Noot and Soler.
Is it possible you hold on to Arenado until the trade deadline? Any rebound might make him a little more readable.
I mentioned Soler back in September. This is the easiest path to an Arenado trade. Soler can be penciled in as the RH option for DH and corner outfield. He’s had a 114 OPS+ over the last 3 years and an .860 OPS vs LH pitching in his career.
Well, it is the best path to save as much money as possible.
The Cardinals could simply pay down all but $2-5 million of Arenado’s contract. But by taking back Soler at $3 million in savings in 2026, they can potentially save a few million dollars more in 2026 by paying down his contract instead of Arenado’s.
It’s not a terrible idea. I would rather watch Soler take some hacks as I would Walker.
I’m not sure if the Angels would want to do the deal that way though. They might prefer to trade a prospect. They are a strange organization in that they think they are going for it every year even though they are far from it. Kind of like the Rockies.
I mentioned Soler back in September. This is the easiest path to an Arenado trade. Soler can be penciled in as the RH option for DH and corner outfield. He’s had a 114 OPS+ over the last 3 years and an .860 OPS vs LH pitching in his career.
So, I heard something the other day that Soler was upset about playing the outfield this past year.
“I mean, I haven’t played in the outfield for a while for years,” Soler said. “And then coming here and playing it, it’s tough.”
“It’s frustrating for me because I haven’t performed well,” Soler said. “And I need to play to perform. And it’s kind of frustrating to me because I want to play to put up some good numbers, and so far the injury issues haven’t let me play enough.”
Sounds like he wants to be used in the outfield sparingly.
I figure the longer it goes without Arenado being traded the more money the Cardinals will have to eat to execute a trade.
I’d bet the dollar amount is increasing by 7 figures each week that passes.
Mo had him traded to Houston last season but NA exercised his no trade clause to kill it. I wonder how close Bloom is to getting this worked out?
Obviously, everybody out there knows the situation and so it appears that there’s just no interest in him other than as an afterthought veteran presence on a real contender.
If the Cardinals just cut him loose and ate his contract he’d probably get signed to a 1 year 5-10 Million dollar deal with a ton of incentives in case he takes a drink from the fountain of youth.
I don’t think the BTV thing takes variables into account, but I am curious how this would look in their eyes.
Arenado and Church for Dana and Soler.
If anyone wants to put that through when they get bored later, it would be appreciated
We always hear about “cash considerations”. Could a team tie “cash considerations” to WAR? I can’t find any articles on “the google” in regards to that and we never seem to know what they are.
Example:
-Cardinals trade Arenado to team X for either a low level prospect/pick/intl money.
-Rockies 5M goes to team X
-Team X agrees to pay $1M in 2026 & 2027
-Teams agree 1WAR=$9m (I would assume they all probably have their own WAR valuation)
-FG’s projects him at 2WAR in 2026 actually (easy # to use here)
-Team X pays the $1M, then at 2 WAR, he is valued at $18M – $1M = $17M
-Then the Cards get back the $17M cash considerations in 2026For team X, I think that could definitely
help if they are in the luxury tax brackets. I think “cash considerations” would not be added on team X’s luxury tax/competitive balance number.It’s an outside the box creative accounting idea. Look at the best team in the league, the last two seasons, accounting skills on Cots. Let’s trade for those folks?
Katie Woo says Dbacks and Cards are “in serious discussions”.
I’ve seen them linked to Goldschmidt as well, that be quite a story of those two ended up back together.
I wonder if we could throw in a prospect like Mautz, and get a decent prospect in return. Or do the Dbacks have an outfielder we could use?
We get minor league pitcher Jack Martinez. He has never pitched in pro ball, after being drafted last year.
My quick take. I added your link, CFICT. Thanks.
Cardinals Trade Arenado and Cash to Arizona for Minor League Pitcher
The Cardinals are actually paying $26M to move Arenado since the Rockies are chipping in $5M. That is pretty much what I expected but a little on the high end.
It turns out Bloom was able to convince Bill to use cash to move Nado. Donovan will be a separate trade! That is smart.
Arenado is being valued as a really bad player. Basically getting little to no salary relief and a complete flier prospect. $11M over two years, with no return, means he’s expected to net about 1 total WAR in two years. Hopefully for Nolan’s sake the mountain air will push a few of his fly balls over the fence and he’ll have a productive end of his career.
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