With the Super Bowl in our rear view, baseball season is unofficially here. Spring training is almost upon us, and the sounds of pitchers and catchers are already spattered across social media as fans wait to see their favorite players arrive in Florida and Arizona.
For the St Louis Cardinals, this means the time has come to make a hard decision. Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has spent much of the offseason in search of a new home for longtime Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado, to no avail. The window is shrinking by the hour, but there is still time for Mozeliak to find a trade partner.
“With the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers seen as long shots to make a move for Arenado, an eight-time All-Star third baseman,” wrote Jeff Passan of ESPN, “the (Boston) Red Sox remain the landing spot that makes the most sense.”
The Red Sox have reportedly remained tentatively interested in both Arenado and Alex Bregman, perhaps waiting for the other shoe to drop before acting with more urgency.
Although a trade appears to make sense for both Arenado and the Red Sox, the three years and $74 million remaining on the 33-year-old’s contract tells a different story.
“Moving Arenado could force St. Louis to eat upward of half the money he is owed,” Passan went on to write. “Short of that, Boston’s interest is iffy.”
Boston’s payroll, as of right now, is $20 million lower than it was last season, and over $30 million below the first CBT threshold. In other words, three years of a $24.6 million AAV should not scare the Red Sox away from completing a self-admitted incomplete roster.
“We’re still very much engaged in trying to bring in a right-handed hitter, obviously one that we think can be a difference-maker,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said this week on the “Fenway Rundown” podcast. “I think it’s fair to say that in some respects, maybe the roster is a bit incomplete. But we’re going to continue to work really hard to try to round it out.”
If the Red Sox are indeed working really hard to round out their roster, now is the time to do it.
More MLB: MLB Insider Predicts Alex Bregman Will Not Receive Deal He Expected
The post Red Sox Rumors: Nolan Arenado To Boston Makes ‘Most Sense,’ Per MLB Insider appeared first on Newsweek.
