{"id":14450,"date":"2025-07-22T03:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T03:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/14450\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T03:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T03:21:09","slug":"mozeliak-planning-to-meet-with-arenado-before-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/14450\/","title":{"rendered":"Mozeliak Planning To Meet With Arenado Before Deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the trade deadline 10 days away, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said he plans to meet with Nolan Arenado<\/a> in the coming week (relayed by John Denton of MLB.com<\/a>). That\u2019ll be an exploratory discussion to see if the 10-time Gold Glove winner has changed his mind at all regarding a potential trade. Arenado has full no-trade rights and famously invoked that clause to kill an offseason deal that would have sent him to Houston.<\/p>\n

Arenado reportedly wanted more time to evaluate the Astros\u2019 direction after they\u2019d traded Kyle Tucker<\/a>. Offseason reporting suggested he was only interested in approving a deal to five clubs: the Yankees, Padres, Dodgers, Red Sox and potentially Astros once he had a better feel for their competitive outlook. Aside from Houston, none of those teams seemed to show much interest. They moved on to signing\u00a0Christian Walker<\/a> when Arenado didn\u2019t immediately accept a deal.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox, Dodgers and Padres all have established third basemen. (Max Muncy<\/a> is currently on the injured list for L.A., but he\u2019s expected back in August and the Dodgers don\u2019t intend<\/a> to trade for third base help.) While Houston did just lose Isaac Paredes<\/a> to a hamstring strain, they\u2019re within a few million dollars of the luxury tax threshold and are highly unlikely to trade for Arenado. The Yankees absolutely need a third baseman, yet Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a> wrote earlier this month that New York\u2019s front office is concerned about Arenado\u2019s declining offensive output in his mid-30s. That aligns with reporting from various Yankees beat writers dating back to the offseason which downplayed the team\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

If Arenado\u2019s trade preferences are unchanged, it\u2019s very difficult to see a deal coming together. That\u2019d probably remain the case even if he were willing to broaden his list of destinations. His bat has declined in three consecutive seasons. Arenado took a .241\/.299\/.381 slash line into tonight\u2019s game \u2014 his worst numbers in a full season since his 2013 rookie year. He is playing on a $32MM salary, $5MM of which is covered by the Rockies. He\u2019ll make $27MM next year (again with $5MM paid by Colorado) and $15MM in 2027. In this season and next, $6MM is deferred. It\u2019s still a significant sum for a player who looks like a league average hitter at this point, even if he remains a quality defender.<\/p>\n

Mozeliak acknowledged that as things currently stand, he \u201cwould envision (Arenado) being a part of this in the future.\u201d That reflects the challenges of aligning on a deal, though the front office head added that \u201cif something were to pop up, I would definitely discuss it with him.\u201d In any case, the Cardinals appear increasingly likely to deal some veteran pieces. They\u2019re trying to find a taker<\/a> for struggling starting pitcher\u00a0Erick Fedde<\/a>. Reporting last week indicated they were fielding interest<\/a> on impending free agent relievers\u00a0Ryan Helsley<\/a>,\u00a0Phil Maton<\/a> and\u00a0Steven Matz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That was before they got swept by the Diamondbacks in their first series out of the All-Star Break. The NL Central looks to be a two-horse race between the Cubs and Brewers. The Cards have dropped four games behind the Padres for the final Wild Card spot with the Reds and Giants in between them. They\u2019ve gone 4-10 this month (pending the result of tonight\u2019s game in Colorado). After outperforming expectations for much of the season, they\u2019re hitting a skid right as the time comes for the front office to pick a direction.<\/p>\n

Mozeliak acknowledged the downward trend, especially the recent sweep, in sounding more amenable to selling. \u201cClearly the weekend was not what we wanted to see, and now we\u2019ve got to understand what the future looks like,\u201d he told reporters (link via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/a>). \u201cWhere we are in the standings definitely affects our decision-making moving forward at the deadline. Playing those three games and losing all three is not helpful. (We) wanted to come out of the break having a positive start to it. We didn\u2019t. As we reflect on what\u2019s best for the organization, there is the longer view in terms of: Are there decisions that we can make that will better situate the franchise in 2026 and beyond?\u201d<\/p>\n

The team still has a bit of runway to pull back into the race. They should expect to win the series against the Rockies, and a sweep isn\u2019t outlandish. They\u2019ll then have a direct matchup with one of their top competitors, as they host the Padres for four games to close out the week. They\u2019ll welcome the Marlins to Busch Stadium for the final three games before the deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the trade deadline 10 days away, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said he plans to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,13055,82],"class_list":["post-14450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-nolan-arenado","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}