Nolan Arenado is said to want out of Colorado and a new report says he’d love for his new team to be the Chicago Cubs .
Baseball expert Jeff Passan appeared on ESPN 1000 on Wednesday morning and spilled the beans about where the Rockies’ third baseman would like to end up. Passan and radio host David Kaplan discussed a couple of different issues regarding the Cubs but, as Bleacher Nation reports, the conversation kept coming back to Chicago and whether or not they had a chance to land the slugger.
The conversation was premised on the idea that, now that Kris Bryant lost his grievance and will be with the Chicago Cubs until after 2021, the team will be freer to trade him and get a solid return. Kaplan asked Passan about potential trades should Bryant be unloaded. He was also asked what he thought Chicago might need to send to Colorado to get the deal done.
One such scenario had Kaplan offering Cubs’ catcher Willson Contreras as well as outfielder Jason Heyward for the third baseman. Passan said the Rockies would hang up, mainly because of the $86 million remaining on Heyward’s contract. What Passan did add though was that Arenado would “love” to join the Cubs if a deal could be worked out.
As Bleacher Nation ‘s Brett Taylor pointed out, people might normally dismiss that kind of talk as “pie in the sky” because it wouldn’t ever happen, but things are a bit different in the Mile-High city.
Arenado is not happy with the way the Rockies have treated him this offseason. He’s heard talk that he was getting shopped and has basically asked that the team finalize some kind of deal for him.
Arenado’s situation is also different because he has a limited no-trade clause in his contract. That means he can largely dictate where he’s traded. Taylor points out that if he would “love” to play for the Cubs, he might be able to force that to happen.
This isn’t the first time that point has been brought up. Analysts have talked before about the Rockies having a “ Giancarlo Stanton situation ” on their hands when it comes to their best player.
Stanton was not only the best player in Miami in 2017 — he was one of the best players in baseball.
However, when he’d had enough of the Marlins’ penny-pinching, he effectively forced the team to trade him to the New York Yankees for a return considered “below market” by most. Now Cubs fans have been given a bit of hope that the same could happen with Arenado.