Mike Petriello did a countdown of the top landing spots for Nolan Arenado, who is pretty much a lock to be traded this offseason. Perhaps surprisingly, he listed the Angels at No. 1.

1) Angels
This might be it. This might be the spot. The Angels, 72-90 last year and having missed the playoffs for the past 11 seasons, might not be an obvious landing spot for a player hoping to find a contender. But they continue to operate as though they are, and the addition of Grayson Rodriguez surely opened some eyes across the sport. With Anthony Rendon completely out of the mix, the Angels had baseball’s weakest third base situation in 2025, a last-place ranking they’re projected to repeat in 2026. Although Arenado grew up in Southern California as a Dodgers fan, he attended high school in Lake Forest, which is far closer to Angel Stadium than it is Dodger Stadium. If he wants to get back home, he’ll never have a better chance than this.

I know there's a whole lot of "LOL Angels" potential here, but it actually might make some sense? The Angels have had horrid production at third base for years and Arenado fills a few of the club's needs (cutting down on strikeouts, better defense, literally something useful at 3B). Plus, Arenado would be a pretty good veteran leader for the likes of Neto, Schanuel, Moore, etc. in the infield.

With two years and $37 million on his deal, the Cards would probably need to get it down closer to 2/25. Arenado has a no-trade clause, too, but I imagine he'd be tempted to waive it to come home. He was only at 0.9 fWAR in 2025, but he was at 3.2 WAR in '24 and is projected to bounce back to roughly 2 WAR in '26.

It might not be the best use of resources, but he'd fill an obvious need and the Angels do have plenty of money to spend.

17 comments

  3. It’s far better for the club to just resign Yoan for cheap and ride out the Rendon deal for this season

  5. I still have no idea why Arenado would want to waive his NTC to come here. I guess if he wants to spend the last two years of his contract coasting on a team with no expectations in Socal this is the place to be. 

    On top of that I really think it’s stupid to take the money they just saved on the Ward trade and blow it on a 35 year old (at the start of the season) 3B. I guess if the Cardinals want to eat almost all of his salary or send a good prospect our way it might be worth it, but then again that just goes back to my first point. 

  7. Not unless the cardinals are paying a significant portion of the remaining contract and/or include prospects. Otherwise I’d be baffled why they’d take him over Okamoto, who is younger, has a better bat, will have a lower AAV and showed interest playing here.

  9. It’s not really a trade that moves the needle in any way. He’s going to be 35 and is in a pretty obvious decline. Granted there’s only 2 years left on his contract but it just doesn’t make sense.

  10. Just as a follow up to the original post because I figured most people would be against this: I don’t think this is the direction I would go.

    It’d make more sense to sign someone with a similar profile/projection for less $$$ in free agency like IKF (low strikeouts, good defense) and save the rest for pitching + a center fielder.

  12. Swap for Soler’s contract and a low-level prospect. Only adds $3mm to the payroll next season (they’re not getting a better 3B for $3mm) and opens up DH for Trout. The $15mm next season isn’t nearly as big of a deal.

  14. I mean, it would be awesome and maybe making Rendon the DH will keep him healthy in his final year. Theyre playing with putting trout back in the OF anyways.

    Not sure why Arenado would want to come here besides it being SoCal tho.

Leave a Reply