Cardinals finally reach trade deal to move Arenado
After more than a year of attempts and with one agreed deal ultimately scuttled, the St. Louis Cardinals finally found a match for third baseman Nolan Arenado on Tuesday, agreeing to a deal which would send him to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The teams confirmed the trade, which brings right-handed pitcher Jack Martinez to St. Louis and sends cash with Arenado to Arizona.
Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported that the Diamondbacks would cover $5 million of the $27 million due to Arenado in 2026 and $6 million of the $15 million due to him in 2027.
“We are grateful for Nolan’s five years as a Cardinal, on and off the field — for his drive, his competitiveness, and for all of the memories he gave us,” stated Cardinals President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom. “We wish Nolan and his family the very best as he continues with the next chapter of his great career.
“As we continue to move forward, we are pleased to add another intriguing pitching prospect to our organization, and excited for the opportunity this move creates for a number of our players to step up and further establish themselves at the big league level.”
Arenado, who will turn 35 just after the start of the upcoming season, was acquired prior to the 2021 season in a deal which saw the Cardinals make a significant financial commitment to one of the best defenders in the history of Major League Baseball, as well as a cornerstone offensive talent who would finish third in MVP voting in 2022, the last time the Cardinals reached the postseason.
Teamed with Paul Goldschmidt at first base, Arenado was targeted as an elite finishing piece on a team which believed it could compete for a World Series championship. They reached the playoffs in each of his first two seasons as a Cardinal but did not win a game either year, building upon an ongoing competitive frustration which has developed into a full-on rebuilding posture.
Arenado won the two most recent of his ten consecutive Gold Gloves as a Cardinal. His 118 homers in St. Louis rank second in franchise history among primary third basemen, trailing only Ken Boyer.
In acquiring Arenado, the Cardinals received a significant cash payout from the Colorado Rockies amortized over the length of the deal. The final $5 million payment is due this coming season, and all told, the result is a net $37 million in financial commitment the team had to Arenado over the last two years of his contract. That sum, given the downturn in his offensive output in recent seasons, was a significant barrier to completing a trade, and the Cardinals anticipated sending a significant sum to a trade partner to offset some of that obligation.
After former president of baseball operations John Mozeliak identified trading Arenado as “priority one, two and three” ahead of the 2025 season, an agreed upon deal with the Houston Astros was scuttled when Arenado exercised his no-trade protection. No further deals emerged throughout winter and spring, and Arenado played out an injury-marred season, at the end of which he acknowledged that his timeline and that of the team were divergent in a way that made a trade the best possible outcome.
“I think this team, this organization needs to go a different route with the way they go about their business,” Arenado said in September. “They’ve got to let some of these young guys grow and become players and see what they have. There’s no doubt that I’m in the way of that. So I don’t know what’s going to happen, but obviously I do believe that change is coming.”
This move does indeed open up those pathways, creating a vacancy at third base that’s likely to be primarily filled by some combination of Nolan Gorman and JJ Wetherholt. Wetherholt likely will slot in as the team’s everyday second baseman, assuming he wins a job in spring, but could play third if a trade of Brendan Donovan is not completed.
Martinez, who turns 23 in March, did not pitch in the Diamondbacks system last year after being drafted, which is typical for a collegiate starter with a full year’s workload. Listed at 6’4” and 215 pounds, he fits the pattern of large-bodied righty starters the Cardinals have pursued in trades this winter.
Arenado joins Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray as significant veterans who have been shipped out of St. Louis over the past several months. While Bloom has been reticent to use the term “rebuild” to describe the team’s current roster posture, there is no doubt that that is what the Cardinals are pursuing.
Many industry observers doubted whether the Cardinals would at all be able to find a trade partner for Arenado, given the burden of his contract, but Bloom consistently and bluntly denied that the team was considering granting him his release. Instead, the completion of this move sends Arenado back to the NL West, where he began his career. It also opens up the possibility of a reunion with Goldschmidt, who has long been rumored to be considering a reunion with his former team in Arizona.
For the Cardinals, the deal represents the disappointing end to one of the most electric open chapters written about the Cardinals in the past decade. It is a closed book on an era which will ultimately be defined by its disappointments, and authors in ink a new start under a new stewardship.
This story was originally published January 13, 2026 at 11:44 AM.
