When the Colorado Rockies traded Nolan Arenado, the walls came tumbling down.
National media, local media, and fans everywhere raced to describe the move in the most extreme terms with many concluding that it wasn’t just a disaster but arguably the worst trade in the history of Major League Baseball.
There were quite a few aspects of the transaction that were, and remain, absolutely mind-boggling. How did they manage to alienate the best player in franchise history so badly? How did they let it get to the point where he was taking public shots at them and would ultimately demand a trade? How did they not seek to find a solution and at the very least remove GM Jeff Bridich before making any rash decisions?
But that wasn’t the headline. Literally or figuratively. You know what the headline was. And still is…
A few weeks ago I was sitting in a brewery along Colfax Avenue in Denver, talking to a friend about baseball and someone overheard me mentioning how difficult covering the Rockies has been since this move, and the anger that came after it, and a stranger remarked, “well that’s what happens when you pay someone $50 million to take your best player off your hands.”
This, my friends, became the biggest talking point. And it was always a lie.
To be clear, Colorado did send $50 million to St. Louis in the deal. Literally everyone knows that. It was in every single headline. Sadly, what a lot of people don’t seem to know – or worse in some cases are pretending not to know – is that this kind of cash exchange when moving a player with a large contract is standard.
Not long after, the New York Mets would do the same thing with Justin Verlander, for $54 million, and Max Scherzer for $35.5 million. Those of you skilled in basic mathematics might have noticed that is a much larger sum than what Colorado sent along with Arenado. So why aren’t you likely to hear a stranger bemoaning that the Mets “paid $89.5 million for the Rangers and Astros to take no-doubt future Hall-of-Famers off their hands?”
The answer is painfully simple. Because the Mets have the money to spend, and because they’ve been good while the Rockies have not. New York became the darlings of MLB with their new owner willing to dole out big money, and have been generally more competitive since then, and that appears to have earned them the benefit of people getting the facts straight.
Unfortunately, in a race to clown on the Rockies, the facts and arithmetic got so lost that it should frankly embarrass anyone whose job it is to explain these things to the public. So let’s back up a second now that we realize the “Big Dumb Rockies” aren’t the only team to ever pay large sums of money to make elite talent go away and ask why anyone does this at all.
Itt comes down to basic math. These players all have (or had) a lot of money left on the deals they signed with their original teams. Verlander had about $93 million left on his deal, and Scherzer about $58 million for a total of $151 million.
So while the Mets paid $89.5 million collectively for two of the best pitchers in modern history to play against them, they cleared a net of $61.5 million off their future books. In other words, they didn’t pay to take the players off their hands, they paid to take the contracts off their hands and saved over $60 million for future spending.
Again, this is fairly standard, we just haven’t historically seen it with such large numbers and such big names. The reason this happens is because veterans get traded for packages of prospects and prospects don’t make any money yet. So the calculation comes down to trying to get a package of young players that will be roughly equal in value to the amount of money you are sending out.
So, in the case of the Mets, they got back prospects Drew Gilbert, Ryan Clifford, and Luisangel Acuna. In order for the trades to truly be considered “wins” these three players would need to put up value of roughly $89.5 million (the total sent along with Verlander and Scherzer) in their time on the roster. That equates to about 11 WAR.
Gilbert and Clifford have yet to debut and Acuna only has 14 games of MLB experience so we will need to wait a bit to see if that comes to fruition. But in the case of the Rockies, things have had more time to play out.
Of the five players that Colorado received for Arenado, only one remains in the organization, starting pitcher Austin Gomber. Gomber has struggled in many ways since coming to Coors Field, especially in the eyes of fans and media who see him as the only value returned for Arenado (because they’re ignoring the money saved) and placed expectations that he could somehow replace the superstar.
He hasn’t done that. But quietly, Gomber has performed admirably and accrued 4.3 fWAR in his time wearing purple pinstripes which is good for a value of about $34.4 million. And to this point, the Rox have paid him about $5 million. So he has been worth nearly $30 million in excess value.
That doesn’t fully cover the $50 million that Colorado sent along with Arenado but it’s probably a lot closer than most realize and Gomber is also not done yet which brings us back to the most salient detail. The math.
Remember that the Mets ultimately saved a net of $60 million despite all the money sent out. So how much did the Rockies save? One-hundred and fifty million dollars. They sent out less money and saved substantially more.
Now, they did spend that money on Kris Bryant which has turned into one of the worst contracts in franchise history, so you don’t necessarily need to give the Rockies credit for that part. But let’s not revise history to suggest those lambasting the trade at the time were doing so because they didn’t think the Rox would spend the money wisely, when most of them were telling you the team lost money instead of the truth that they saved $150 million.
To be fair to them, they were only misleading you to the tune of being $200 million off. And they knew they could get away with it because anyone daring to defend the facts on this would be (trust me) summarily ostracized for “defending the indefensible.”
But then something happened…
His first year with the Cards was a little bit odd. Arenado saw a dip in production, producing 4.0 WAR, down from the 6.5 he averaged his last five years in Colorado. Also, St. Louis missed the postseason. But that all seemed like a blip on the radar the next year when he posted a career-high 7.4 WAR, was in contention for MVP, and played October baseball.
Over the last two years, however, he posted 2.4 and 2.5 WAR and watched the playoffs from his couch. Now, four years after the fiasco and after an offseason where his current team made it abundantly clear that they were trying to move him off the roster, Arenado appears to be stuck in the situation he chose.
And the reason couldn’t be more dripping with irony; It’s because of the money left on his contract. Y’know the money that the Rockies (gasp!) did well to get out from underneath?
Of course, it’s still Spring Training and speculation has recently heated up again that he might end up in Houston or New York. But here’s the kicker. The reason that hasn’t happened yet is because the Cardinals have been unwilling to do what the Rockies did, which is pay down some of the contract. If they want to move him they will need to do precisely that, at which point it would be fascinating to see how many media members recognize the irony.
The Cardinals have been one of the iconic franchises of MLB for over 100 years and their reputation is likely to protect them from the same kind of avalanche of overreaction the Rockies tend to get. But some of the shine is starting to come off. They did almost the same thing with another star player during this window they hoped to be competing, acquiring Paul Goldschmidt from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Like Arenado, Goldschmidt had his moments in St. Louis but it didn’t all come together and he signed with the Yankees this offseason. None of the players the Diamondbacks received for him amounted to much and none remain on the roster. In fact, of all the players that Colorado and Arizona got back for Arenado and Goldschmidt combined, Austin Gomber has comfortably been the most valuable.
So despite how terribly executed it was, as it turned out, not only was the Arenado trade not the worst in MLB history, it wasn’t even the worst trade that an NL West team made with the St. Louis Cardinals in a four-year timespan. Nobody won either of these trades.
Ultimately, this is an extraordinary lesson in making sure to check your emotions with facts and to be extra cautious and critical of the people spinning narratives.
From the Colorado Rockies perspective, even with all this context, the Arenado trade was an abject disaster in ways that can’t be measured. Far beyond taking his talent off the field, it fractured the culture of the team, the fans, and the media. It turned the Rockies into cartoon villains in the public eye and it’s easy to see why.
He’s arguably the greatest third baseman of all time and they’ve never won their division. It’s easy to create a babyface/heel dynamic out of that. Blurring the line between sports and sports entertainment, the Nolan Arenado trade is often treated, especially in Denver, like Dick Monfort is Hulk Hogan or John Cena turning their backs on the children.
The Rockies could do no right and Arenado could do no wrong, even after making false comments about his old fans. And for many, it didn’t get any more complicated than that. Boo Rockies. Yay Nolan.
But four years later, removed a bit from the emotions of the moment, with the clarity of the facts, we can see it was all for show and reality didn’t turn out the way anyone thought it would… or the way anyone wanted.
