Nolan Arenado’s arrival at St. Louis Cardinals camp Sunday seemed to represent a turning of the page for the parties involved in the months-long attempt to find him a new professional home.
“We definitely tried this off-season, and here we are,” John Mozeliak said flatly on Arenado’s first day in camp.
Mozeliak worked throughout the winter with Arenado’s limited list of acceptable teams—a list that, as the player shared Sunday, is unlikely to expand moving forward—and was ultimately unable to find a suitable match.
But does Arenado’s presence in Jupiter actually signal the end of the effort to send him someplace else?
“I will say, last night, I slept pretty well for the first time in a while,” Mozeliak said.
A sign that he’s reached closure following the frustrating saga? Surely this wasn’t the way he wanted to spend his final winter as the Cardinals POBO.
Indeed, Mozeliak seemed Sunday to be relieved that his day-to-day will no longer be dominated by the looming pressure to find a deal to send his team’s most prominent player out of town.
“I think the way we’re going to approach this spring training and the season is he’s part of the Cardinals,” Mozeliak said. “Now, if something comes up and it makes sense, I’ll certainly get with him and we’ll talk about it. But it’s not something where I’m getting up every morning and chasing the waiver wire or chasing injuries or chasing things like that.”
Nolan Arenado is here.
— Brenden Schaeffer🎳 (@bschaeffer12) February 16, 2025
A lot of his thought process is to put the winter behind him and focus on being a better ball player this year than he was last season.
Full video to come. pic.twitter.com/Ldzmbod8ES
For Arenado, Sunday was about easing any perception of tension and moving into baseball mode. He left any talk of pending desires to be moved on Mozeliak's plate, shifting his attention to the action on the field.
Arenado also made mention of his lackluster numbers in 2024, stating there was “no excuse for” his performance.
“If I was a better player last year, maybe things would be a little bit different,” Arenado said, flashing a knowing grin.
One way to read that smile? Perhaps Arenado knows that if he were a better player last year, Mozeliak would have found more eager suitors for his services over the past few months.
But peeling back even another layer to this onion, perhaps if Arenado were a better player last year, the butterfly effect of that reality would have nudged the Cardinals into staying the course, spending more money in the off-season to put its best foot forward as a contender for another year. In a world where the pillars of the Cardinals roster performed to expectations in 2024, the saga surrounding trade possibilities arguably never happens.
With Arenado still around, the undercurrent is unavoidable that all of this—being part of an organization that isn’t focused on hoisting a World Series trophy as its primary motivation in 2025—wasn’t his first choice. But he seemed at ease Sunday to move into the next phase of this process. The baseball phase.
“Do I wish the direction was all-in? Of course," he said. "But is this what's best for the Cardinals? Probably.”
Ultimately, moving Arenado would have saved ownership some money. It would have allowed another spot for less proven players like Nolan Gorman to draw daily opportunities without being blocked.
All of that being what it is, the sentiment in Abacoa on Sunday: the Cardinals are a better team in 2025 with Arenado at third base than without him.