Schadenfreude in St Louie - Will Arenado Be Traded?

Goldschmidt makes a lot more sense to trade than Arenado. 

It's more likely they are looking for their third coach in six years than they trade Nolan, but you never know. It would be just the Cardinals' luck if they traded him for the next Pujols and Wainwright.

6 minutes ago, champaignchris said:

Goldschmidt makes a lot more sense to trade than Arenado. 

I agree, though selling both would bring back quite a return.

Get Arenado by offering to take the Contreras contract off their hands. 

5 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I agree, though selling both would bring back quite a return.

My impression is that for whatever reason the Cards are really reticent to trade Goldschmidt, and would actually like to extend him beyond next year, which makes zero sense to me. Of course that may just be posturing, but to me that's guy you trade right now, as his value/production will only decline.

Of course there's the notion that they won't be able to sell a rebuild to the fans there, which is why we probably won't see both he and Arenado go, even if that would be the right move.

48 minutes ago, XZero77 said:

My impression is that for whatever reason the Cards are really reticent to trade Goldschmidt, and would actually like to extend him beyond next year, which makes zero sense to me. Of course that may just be posturing, but to me that's guy you trade right now, as his value/production will only decline.

Of course there's the notion that they won't be able to sell a rebuild to the fans there, which is why we probably won't see both he and Arenado go, even if that would be the right move.

I hope they bow to public relations and keep both. It makes them a worse team over the long haul.

Would they really even get that much for either of those guys?  they're both older and in spite of essentially career years last year, they have to be on the downside of their careers. I guess I can see Arenado bringing back a decent return since he's got some control left.

18 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Get Arenado by offering to take the Contreras contract off their hands. 

Yan Gomes is barely hitting any worse than Contreras is, and while I still think it's kind of silly to attribute better pitcher performance to catchers in a lot of ways, most of the smart baseball teams seem to disagree, so I'm probably wrong. All a long way of saying Contreras can stay where he is.

12 minutes ago, Andy said:

Yan Gomes is barely hitting any worse than Contreras is, and while I still think it's kind of silly to attribute better pitcher performance to catchers in a lot of ways, most of the smart baseball teams seem to disagree, so I'm probably wrong. All a long way of saying Contreras can stay where he is.

Was mostly tongue in cheek. Had planned to come up with a second trade where pick up Javy's contract, but couldn't find anyone from the Tigers roster that would have made the joke land. 

1 hour ago, mul21 said:

Would they really even get that much for either of those guys?  they're both older and in spite of essentially career years last year, they have to be on the downside of their careers. I guess I can see Arenado bringing back a decent return since he's got some control left.

Baseball Trade Values has Goldschmidt with solid value(though not anything obscene) and Arenado underwater given his contract.  While I don't think those are exactly correct, I think they're directionally true.  Goldschmidt could get you a couple guys from the "good prospect or 2nd division MLBer" bucket, and Arenado is probably not getting you much unless you start eating significant money.

These two chucklefucks would solve a lot of problems on the North Side.  Make it happen Jed!

On 7/11/2023 at 12:59 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

I agree, though selling both would bring back quite a return.

Based on their contracts vs production, Nolan is several million of negative surplus, and Goldi in positive about the same amount that Arenado is negative.  Between the two of them, I think that their surplus is zero.  They would have to pay this year's salary of about 19.5 million, minus the 5 million the Rockies pay.  If not, I'd expect them to get a JAG for a return. 

26 minutes ago, thawv said:

Based on their contracts vs production, Nolan is several million of negative surplus, and Goldi in positive about the same amount that Arenado is negative.  Between the two of them, I think that their surplus is zero.  They would have to pay this year's salary of about 19.5 million, minus the 5 million the Rockies pay.  If not, I'd expect them to get a JAG for a return. 

I disagree and that's one of the biggest problems with BTV. The reality is that teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, et al care about production in the short- or mid-term far more than they care about the back-end of contracts. But BTV weights contracts strictly on dollars vs expected performance.

I think Goldschmidt has a ton of value. I think Arenado has significant value to the right team.

8 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I disagree and that's one of the biggest problems with BTV. The reality is that teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, et al care about production in the short- or mid-term far more than they care about the back-end of contracts. But BTV weights contracts strictly on dollars vs expected performance.

I think Goldschmidt has a ton of value. I think Arenado has significant value to the right team.

What I'm trying to say is that I think that the return is going to be underwhelming based on them being salary dumps.  I think the Cards would take very little just to free up this money.  JMO

They aren't trading either.  They'll hope to get back in the playoff contention when the reality is, they're too far behind to do any serious damage.  I mean, what, they'll get a game or two over .500, sneak in, and win the WS?? Like that can happen.

Yeah, all indications are that they aren't going to blow things up, they're gonna deal from their rentals and maybe an OF to try to get a head start on building their 2024 rotation.

As for the trade value conversation, while I don't think BBTV's mathematical approach is perfect, it's closer than it might seem in these cases because of the compounding factor of age.  Less so for Goldschmidt because he's only got 1.5 years(though teams will offer less to have him for less time), but for Arenado it's not that about the specific $/WAR efficiency, it's committing 15-20% of your payroll to his age 33-36 seasons.  Trading a haul for the opportunity to do that requires an extremely high confidence in his aging curve basically being an aging plateau.