Cardinals Acquiring Nolan Arenado

[bpj]

Arenado is a guy who has been a product of his home park in my opinion.

The guy hits. 200 OPS higher at home than on the road for his career.

In 2020 he had an OPS in road games of .636

By comparison, Mallex Smiths 2019 he had a .635 OPS.

That's a risky acquisition at $150M over 6 years imo.

The Cardinals are a pretty smart organization, maybe they see the problem.

My guess is Arenado becomes a big disappointment for them. They've got themselves a $150M player that is a cumulative .800 OPS guy going forward imo. There aren't many of those. In a bad way.

Career and 2020 OPS splits below:

[bpj]

If he can put up a cumulative OPS that is similar to his Career AWAY OPS, by comparison, a .793 OPS for a 3B in 2019 would have been good for 27th out of 30 third basemen (120 PA min), just ahead of 2019 Kyle Seager.

[Sibelius Hindemith]

I'm surprised the Mariners didn't offer him 7 years $200 mil so he could be the next Beltre.

[IStillLoveTheMs]

Cardinals gave up a young pitcher, one top-10 prospect and 2 nobodies.

$50 million sent over by the Rockies making his contract worth around $25 million a year. He has opt-out options in 2021 and 2022 so it's a bit risky...

But man, this is what great organizations do to quickly make themselves better.

Arenado is going to hit for a .900+ OPS and play GG caliber D.

I really hope some day it could actually be fun to be a Mariners fan... imagine you're a Cardinals fan and you hear Nolan Arenado is coming to town?

[bpj]

Cardinals gave up a young pitcher, one top-10 prospect and 2 nobodies.

$50 million sent over by the Rockies making his contract worth around $25 million a year. He has opt-out options in 2021 and 2022 so it's a bit risky...

But man, this is what great organizations do to quickly make themselves better.

Arenado is going to hit for a .900+ OPS and play GG caliber D.

I really hope some day it could actually be fun to be a Mariners fan... imagine you're a Cardinals fan and you hear Nolan Arenado is coming to town?

I'd take the under on that bet.

[IStillLoveTheMs]

Cardinals gave up a young pitcher, one top-10 prospect and 2 nobodies.

$50 million sent over by the Rockies making his contract worth around $25 million a year. He has opt-out options in 2021 and 2022 so it's a bit risky...

But man, this is what great organizations do to quickly make themselves better.

Arenado is going to hit for a .900+ OPS and play GG caliber D.

I really hope some day it could actually be fun to be a Mariners fan... imagine you're a Cardinals fan and you hear Nolan Arenado is coming to town?

I'd take the under on that bet.

Arenado had an away OPS of .832 from 2015-2019... he had an .866 OPS away in 2019... his career away numbers were seriously dragged down by rough rookie and sophomore campaigns... players generally hit a lot better at home and I'd be pretty shocked if all of a sudden his numbers fall off a cliff.

A lot of really good players struggled in what was a weird 2020...

[Donn Beach]

Yeah you mean like how LeMahieu's extreme home and away splits showed how he couldn't hit outside Coors. It really could be as much about Coors making it hard to hit on the road as it is about being easy to hit at Coors. Arendo is a great ballplayer, right up there with best today, Cards got a deal on him, though he probably opts out.

Look at his low strikeout rate and isolated power, he will do fine for the Cards


https://www.mlb.com/rockies/news/nolan- ... t-analysis

[bpj]

2020 is pretty irrelevant, and good points on his other seasons splits.

Hitters typically struggle their first year changing teams (another reason I'm opposed to the wait to acquire talent until the time to contend is here strategy). Same reason I would personally focus on pitching in trade. They don't generally have down years their first year in a new org.

All things considered, I'd put Arenado between .775 and .825 OPS on the season. I wouldn't pony up prospects and $25M for him, but you do make good points about his skewed splits, something to keep an eye on and makes him more attractive than given the career splits.

[bpj]

Yeah you mean like how LeMahieu's extreme home and away splits showed how he couldn't hit outside Coors. It really could be as much about Coors making it hard to hit on the road as it is about being easy to hit at Coors. Arendo is a great ballplayer, right up there with best today, Cards got a deal on him, though he probably opts out.

Look at his low strikeout rate and isolated power, he will do fine for the Cards


https://www.mlb.com/rockies/news/nolan- ... t-analysis

Yes. Same way. LeMahieu is a .697 Away OPS in his career. Anyone can hit in Colorado and NY. I'll pay the guy who hits well across the board. Michael Brantley was a prime example of that.

I'll bet on a down year from Arenado just like I would have if LeMahieu left NY.

Just like when I said Ian Desmond would suck when he left Texas.

[Donn Beach]

Sure like you bet against Betts not being able to hit away from Fenway. Hey you can bet on players all you want, sometimes you will be correct, other times not so much. But basing it simply on home and away splits isn't going to help because if you were to really dig into I doubt you find much correlation