With Arenado not yet traded, Cardinals' Mozeliak calls third baseman `pink elephant in the room'

JUPITER, Fla. (AP) — After spending much off the offseason trying to trade Nolan Arenado, St. Louis Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak admits it would be awkward if the third baseman arrives in camp Monday.

“Obviously, the pink elephant in the room is what are we going to do with Nolan Arenado,” Mozeliak said Wednesday on the first day of workouts. “Candidly, we’re still looking at what that might look like and could something happen in the next week? Possibly. Could this go into camp? Possibly. So I don’t really have like a definitive answer.”

An eight-time All-Star, Arenado hit .272 with 16 homers and 71 RBIs last year, his poorest season in a decade. A 10-time Gold Glove winner, the 33-year-old has a .285 career average with 341 homers and 1,132 RBIs for the Cardinals and Colorado Rockies.

Position players are due to report Monday, though the Cardinals remain involved in trade talks as they transition to a younger roster with Mozeliak stating the goal is “how do we set ourselves up for ‘26, ’27 and beyond?”

“I imagine there might be a moment of awkwardness,” Mozeliak said, “but I still think that he’s a professional baseball payer. He’s currently a St. Louis Cardinal.”

Arenado is owed $74 million for the next three seasons: $32 million this year, $27 million in 2026 and $15 million in 2027. Of those salaries, $6 million each in 2025 and 2026 is to be deferred with no interest, payable from 2032-41.

Colorado will pay St. Louis $5 million this year, the final installment of $51 million the Rockies agreed to pay to offset the $199 million remaining in an agreement worth $275 million over nine years.

“We thought all along that we could probably do something this offseason, but it just hasn’t happened," Mozeliak said. "I think you can determine on your own why it might not be happening: due to the free agent market or it could be who's available on the free-agent market. I imagine there’s a direct correlation there, but ultimately I do not have a large list of teams. It wasn't like 29 I could take him to. So I just tried to navigate what I could work with, and obviously it hasn’t moved at the pace many of us had hoped for.”

Arenado has a full no-trade provision, giving him control over whether he gets dealt. Mozeliak said Arenado would allow a move to five teams.

Mozeliak began his 19-minute news conference with a reference to the team’s lack of player moves.

St. Louis has not signed any free agents to major league contracts after missing the playoffs for the second straight season. The team announced in September that Chaim Bloom will replace Mozeliak after the 2025 season.

“Typically you spend a lot of time rehashing all the accomplishments of the offseason, so this will be brief,’’ Mozeliak said.

“It’s an oddity," he added near the end. "Normally we open this thing feeling really good about what we accomplished in the offseason and then the hope of spring, everybody gets excited when they're down here and we go play baseball. But right now we have this over our heads that's that's what we’re just working through.”.

Four-time Gold Glove first first baseman Paul Goldschmidt left as a free agent for the New York Yamkees and All-Star catcher Willson Contreras is moving to first.

Fourth-year manager Oliver Marmol is optimistic.

“What's difficult for a manager is when there’s not clarity or direction, which is far from what has taken place," he said. "I think the organization was very clear on what was going to take place and how we were going (to) go about doing it, so from being in limbo or up-in-the-air difficulty, there’s zero of that, to be quote honest. There’s extremely clarity to what this offseason was going to look like and we’ve operated under that the entire time as far as how we're prepping for the guys that are in that building.’’

St. Louis hopes younger players such as middle infielders Masyn Winn and Nolan Gorman, and outfielder Jordan Walker can lead the team to the postseason.

“Our goal is to win this year,’’ Mozeliak said. “If all things go right, we feel like we have a veteran pitching staff, we feel like we have emerging arms and feel we have a really talented young core. It’s not a bad bet to make on a young team."

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