By Rob Rains
Nearing the end of his 30-minute session in front of fans on Saturday at the Cardinals Winter Warm-up, a woman on the second row raised her hand to ask John Mozeliak a question.
“What are the plans for Nolan Arenado?” she asked.
It’s the question that so far has had no answer for Mozeliak, the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations, the one that has dominated the last 3 ½ months.
“It’s the elephant in the room,” Mozeliak answered. “Hopefully we are going to trade him. It really would be best for all parties … but it might not happen. He might still be a Cardinal. We have to wait and see.”
That was basically the same message Mozeliak delivered during his time answering the media’s questions on the first day of the team’s annual fan fest – saying he has to keep reminding himself that the off-season is not over.
“Hopeful” and “patience” were the words Mozeliak used to describe trying to explore options for trading Arenado to a place where he would agree to go, calling it the team’s first, second and third priority for the rest of the off-season.
The logjam – Arenado’s no-trade clause – has kept the Cardinals from making a single player addition this winter, either through a free agent signing or a trade, other than waiver claims that added a couple of pitchers to the 40-man roster.
It is not a position Mozeliak expected that he would be in on Jan. 18 – his 56th birthday – and now less than a month away from players reporting to Jupiter, Fla., for the start of spring training.
“The off-season is not over,” Mozeliak said. “There’s still time. By the time we get to Jupiter and open up camp we would like to have some closure but that’s not to say we will. We’re going to have to be patient throughout the next eight to 10 weeks to see where it gets us.
“Hopefully we will get to where we need to be and be able to create that opportunity.”
Mozeliak thought he had a trade made in December sending Arenado to the Astros, but the third baseman blocked the deal.
The Cardinals’ plan to “reset” with younger players in 2025 becomes much more difficult if Arenado is still on the roster, taking more than 500 at-bats that could have gone to some of those players.
“Clearly it would change how we are thinking about our infield,” Mozeliak said. “We’ll continue to try to find a place that he is happy with. When a player has a no-trade, they have a lot of say in this.
“I can say something but it’s really something that he and I will have to discuss … Regardless of what I want to do or the team wants to do, that’s just not how it works … He knows that we are trying and he knows that he’s going to have to try.”
Mozeliak did say that if Arenado isn’t traded, he doesn’t foresee a scenario where he would have to pivot and make another trade, likely from the rotation, to bring the team additional financial relief.
Letting Paul Goldschmidt depart through free agency and not picking up the options for Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Keynon Middleton allowed the Cardinals to get to a “zone” where they felt comfortable financially, Mozeliak said.
Arenado is one of four players on the Cardinals with no-trade clauses, and the other three – Sonny Gray, Miles Mikolas and Willson Contreras – all have expressed interest in staying in St. Louis.
“I wasn’t surprised when they said they wanted to be a part of this,” Mozeliak said.
Dealing with no-trade clauses, Mozeliak admitted, can be frustrating.
“You are a little bit handcuffed on what the player wants to do or has interest in,” he said. “Historically usually when we’ve given those no-trades in the past they’ve worked out for us.”
With Contreras moving to first base, replacing the departed Goldschmidt, Ivan Herrera and Pedro Pages will get more playing time behind the plate.
The team’s plans to have Nolan Gorman play more at third, with Brendan Donovan and Thomas Saggese working mostly at second base, has not gone as smoothly as Mozeliak would have liked, with those plans on hold because of Arenado’s situation.
“It’s the first time in my career that we are sitting up here in the middle of January and literally have done nothing with the roster at this point,” he said. “That part has been an adjustment; not to say that our off-season wasn’t busy.”
The Cardinals have added several new coordinators and instructors at the minor-league level this winter as they ramp up and add to their player development system.
It’s just that none of those moves have been the one Mozeliak really wants to make.
“I’m hopeful,” he said. “If we are putting odds on it, I think it’s still a flip of the coin.”
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