Nolan Arenado reportedly had no interest in joining Royals despite KC inquiring about a trade
At his end-of-the-season news conference in October, Royals general manager J.J. Picollo was asked about his offseason wish list.
Picollo said he wanted to add a top-of-the-order hitter and a power bat in the middle of the lineup. The first was accomplished when the Royals traded for Jonathan India.
But the Royals never were able to find a power hitter for the middle of the order.
Earlier this month, Picollo talked about the Royals’ efforts to get that impact hitter.
“That’s probably the one area in the two years we haven’t been able to reach our goal of getting that,” Picollo said. “It’s a little disappointing, but we can’t force teams to make trades they don’t want to make. We were active in the free-agent market, we just weren’t able to land guys.
“I think it speaks volumes to what Mr. (John) Sherman is doing. His commitment to allow us to continue to bump our payroll up a little bit and willingness to really exceed what the payroll was projected to be. So all we can do is try. Again, we can’t force it. I think we made valiant efforts on the free-agent side and and real concerted, direct efforts in the trade market.”
One of those trade attempts apparently was with the Cardinals for third baseman Nolan Arenado.
The Cardinals made no secret that they were looking to trade Arenado, who has won 10 Gold Glove awards and five Silver Sluggers. CBS Sports said Arenado, 33, will be paid $74 million over the next three years, with the Rockies paying $10 million.
A story by The Athletic’s Katie Woo says the Royals inquired about Arenado.
“The Cardinals had conversations with at least nine organizations — including some surprises,” Woo wrote. “According to an industry source, multiple teams inquired about Arenado early in the offseason, including the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Angels. Those conversations did not yield much, as all three teams were considered non-starters.”
Arenado has a no-trade clause, and he apparently didn’t want to join the Royals, who made the playoffs a year ago and advanced to the ALDS.
The Royals’ goal is to build off that success and make a World Series run, but Arenado apparently doesn’t think it’s in the cards for KC.
“Arenado wasn’t going to accept a trade just anywhere,” Woo wrote. “Should he be dealt, it would be to a team that had firmly put itself in a position to contend for a World Series or a team that was planning to in the near future.
“That’s why talks with the Tigers, Royals and Angels never got off the ground. Those teams were viewed as non-starters by the player, a source described, and no substantial discussions took place.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 9:57 AM.
