With the Cardinals beginning a rebuild under new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, trading the 34-year-old Arenado (35 in April) was one of the top goals this season. He has two years and $42 million remaining on his contract, although the Rockies are on the hook for $5 million of that amount. Arizona is on the hook for $5 million this season and $6 million next year.
Three years ago, an Arenado salary dump was hard to imagine. He was a National League MVP finalist after hitting .293/.358/.533 with 30 home runs and his typical brand of elite defense during that 2022 season. His offense dipped significantly in 2023 (.266/.315/.459), but was still north of league average. However, it dropped to around average in 2024 and plummeted well below par last season.
In 436 plate appearances with the Cardinals in 2025, Arenado posted an anemic .237/.289/.377 batting line. Measured by wRC+, he was 16% worse than an average hitter at the plate. Arenado’s 12 home runs were his fewest in a full season since his rookie year in 2013. This year’s walk rate of 6.4% was his lowest since 2015. Considering his 34.1% chase rate on free throws was also his worst since 2015, that’s not exactly surprising. Arenado’s strikeout rate of 11.2% was one of the lowest in the MLB and one of the best of his career, but he also recorded his highest-ever infield fly rate – 16.5% of his fly-balls were harmless pop-ups – and recorded some of the worst exit velocity and hard-hit numbers of his career.
Suffice to say, Arenado’s decline at the plate has been steep. He still has plus-contact skills, but will need to dial back his pursuit speed and eliminate some of those weak pop-ups if he wants to improve in any meaningful way. Fortunately for Arenado, he’s moving to a more favorable offensive environment than the one he calls home in St. Louis. While Phoenix’s Chase Field isn’t the hitter’s haven it once was, it now plays largely neutral against right-handed power — a big gain for Arenado over St. Louis’ Busch Stadium, which is the fifth-worst park for right-handed home run power over the past three years, according to Statcast’s Park Factors.
Before adding Arenado, the Diamondbacks were involved in the market for Alex Bregman. A game there always seemed like a long shot, given Arizona’s intention to reduce payroll costs in 2026, but the interest was legitimate. The Snakes quickly pivoted and brought in a much cheaper option to keep the hot corner for the next two seasons. Arenado’s glove has also taken some steps back in recent years, but he is still an above-average defender. He gives manager Torey Lovullo a pair of quality defenders on the left side of the infield, joining the breakout shortstop Geraldo Perdomo for that matter.
Acquiring Arenado leaves the Diamondbacks with few prospects for the former No. 6 overall pick and top prospect Jordan Lawlar. Perdomo’s breakout seemed to push Lawlar through the defensive spectrum to third base, but he seemed outmatched both with the glove and in the batter’s box during his first few tests against MLB pitching. The D-backs considered giving him some time in the outfield, and maybe even along Jake McCarthy now in Colorado, after this weekend’s trading, there will be a clearer path to that experiment. If not, Lawlar still has a minor league option left and could be sent back to Triple-A (where he routinely beats opposing pitchers) – or even included in a potential trade package to address needs elsewhere on the roster.
Even as the Snakes look to reduce payroll, the addition of that portion of Arenado’s contract amounts to little more than a footnote. He’s essentially replacing a minimum-league player, so this trade adds a net $4.2 million to the team’s books. According to RosterResource’s estimatesThat puts Arizona’s payroll just north of $170 million. That’s more than $17 million less than last year’s opening day payroll. An exact target isn’t clear, but there should at least be room to add a reliever or two, and further trades could always change the salary outlook one way or another.
If the money changing hands (and the frequent reporting over the past year leading up to today’s trade) wasn’t indicative enough that this amounts to a salary dump for St. Louis, then the return should be. Martinez has yet to pitch an inning in professional ball. The Diamondbacks selected him with their eighth-round pick out of Arizona State University last year. His $167,000 signing bonus came south of the $223,000 closing value of his No. 243 overall selection.
Martinez, a 6-foot-1, 215-pound right-hander, started his college career playing Division III ball before transferring twice and landing in the Sun Devils’ rotation as a senior. He was tagged for a 5.47 ERA through 15 starts during his senior year. It’s not an encouraging number, but Martinez struck out 32.3% of his opponents and can run his fastball up to 90 miles per hour, according to MLB.com’s scouting report. He has a four-pitch mix, with a rotation player being his best secondary offering, but Martinez is a pure lottery ticket for the Cardinals’ reformed player development department.
A year ago, the Cardinals thought they had engineered a trade to send Arenado to the Astros. However, Arenado invoked his no-trade protection to overturn that arrangement, reportedly due to reservations about the Astros’ commitment to contention; Houston had just acted Kyle Tucker to the Cubs days prior to the Arenado deal being completed. Heading into the current offseason, Arenado made it clear that he would be more open to offseason trade scenarios than he was last winter.
That clearly appears to be the case, but the D-backs could have been a viable landing spot for him even if he remained selective. Arizona may be scaling back payroll, but their signings of Merrill Kelly And Michael Soroka – plus their reported interest in the aforementioned Bregman – all indicate a commitment to trying to draft a contender in 2026. Additionally, Arizona is a native of Southern California with a home in Arizona. There are geographic advantages that certainly played a role in his decision to waive the no-trade clause for a move to the desert.
For the Cardinals, Arenado’s move now takes a relatively nominal amount off the long-term books and furthers their goal of creating opportunities for younger players. It remains to be seen if Arenado’s third base reps will move to third base Nolan Gormantop prospect JJ Wetherholt or even former top prospect/third baseman turned outfielder Jordan Walker. Whoever ends up working the hot corner regularly will be a more viable option in the position in the long run than Arenado now that he’s in his mid-30s.
Arenado’s transfer is the third for a big-name veteran who has a big contract with the Cardinals this season. They have already acted Son Gray And Willson Contreras to the Red Sox. Those players were sent out in separate deals, with St. Louis absorbing significant amounts of money in those transactions as well. Between Gray, Contreras and now Arenado, the Cardinals will hand out $54 million over the next two seasons to three players no longer on their books (technically $59 million, but again, they’ll receive $5 million from the Rockies to cover a portion of Arenado’s $32 million salary in 2026).
Eating that amount of money to facilitate the trade of three former All-Stars is unprecedented, but the Cardinals have been clear about their intent to rebuild the organization from the ground up, modernizing the player development department, analytics staff and several other components of the team’s baseball operations — all while offering younger and more controllable players the opportunity to establish themselves in the majors. With three high-priced veterans gone, much of the heavy lifting has been done, but the Cardinals are still widely expected to trade a second baseman Brendan Donovan and left-handed reliever JoJo Romero before the season starts.
Katie Woo of The Athletic first reported that the two sides were having serious discussions. John Gambadoro of 98.7 FM Arizona Sports broke the news that there was an agreement and added that Martinez would return to St. Louis. Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic first reported details about the cash changing hands.
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