By Jordan Long
The Colorado Rockies play their first Spring Training game on February 22nd against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Colorado opens up the regular season on March 26th on the road in San Diego. There are many trade rumors surrounding 3rd baseman Nolan Arenado. The latest one is to the Chicago Cubs.
Arenado is one of the best 3rd basemen in Major League Baseball. In his 7 years at the MLB level, he has shown the ability to smack the baseball with a career batting average of .295 and an on base percentage of .351. Arenado makes a pitcher pay when they throw the ball in the middle of the plate for extra base hits and home runs. He totaled 253 doubles, 27 triples, and 227 home runs In his career
Those are pretty decent numbers at the plate, but he makes his money with his glove. Arenado is the everyday 3rd baseman for the Rockies. Over the course of his career to this point, he has played 1,021 games. In those appearances, Arenado has an impressively low 88 errors. Arenado picks the ball up and throws the ball to first base. He dives to make sure a ground ball won’t be hit past him. Arenado also starts double plays. With his glove, he has won 7 straight Gold Gloves.
Colorado would be foolish to deal Arenado. Letting him go to another team signals they are going to rebuild. They don’t need to. Colorado has the offense in Daniel Murphy, Trevor Story, Charlie Blackmon as well as Arenado. All of them whack the ball for base hits and home runs. These guys are key for the Rockies to do something once the regular season starts.
The Cubs wouldn’t be the right landing spot. They have a 3rd baseman who is an “all-star” in Kris Bryant. Bryant is probably not going to go anywhere this off-season. The problem with the Cubs acquiring Arenado is they couldn’t start both of them at the position, but Bryant can be moved to the outfield. The Cubs need bullpen help more than anything. Colorado doesn’t have the pieces the Cubs want back in a trade.
The other difficulty is Arenado’s contract. He is due to make $32.5 million for the next two years. In 2022 he has an option to stay or become a free agent. That would be a lot of money for a team to take on. Arenado also has a “no-trade” clause in his agreement. This means even if the Rockies have a trade partner, Arenado has the ability to say no.
Colorado should keep Arenado at least until the player option. That would give them time to fix the team, especially the bullpen. Colorado needs to start building a winning ball club around Arenado.
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