This story was excerpted from John Denton's Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ST. LOUIS -- The Cardinals have long since set their course for the 2026 season, plotting the franchise’s first full-scale rebuild in more than three decades after trading established veterans Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras for a haul mostly of prospect pitchers.
Why then, Cardinals fans must wonder, hasn’t the club already swung deals with their biggest name (Nolan Arenado) and their biggest assets (Brendan Donovan and JoJo Romero) with the start of Spring Training about a month away?
"Patience" -- a word new Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom has carefully and strategically avoided as his club begins an arduous retool that might take multiple seasons -- could be needed as St. Louis attempts to pull off transactions involving three of their key pieces.
With Arenado, the market could be described as tepid at best, per a source close to the negotiations. This is meant as no slight to the 34-year-old, who will likely someday enter the Hall of Fame.
The 10-time Gold Glove winner (2013-22) simply doesn’t have teams clamoring for him after he has struggled at the plate for much of the past three seasons. Some of the hesitancy also could be because Arenado -- who possesses a full no-trade clause in his contract -- is owed $41 million ($5 million to be covered by the Rockies). Among the teams that have shown interest in dealing for Arenado, most consider him a fallback plan if they miss on free agents Alex Bregman or Eugenio Suárez.
Arenado has even floated the idea of playing first base by recently posting a picture of his third-base glove and a first-base mitt on his Instagram story.
A source, who praised Arenado’s professionalism in 2025 when the Cards were unable to find another landing spot, said a deal for the third baseman might not materialize until Spring Training, when teams start losing players to injuries. The same source told MLB.com that fans should brace themselves for what St. Louis might get in return for a player with 353 career home runs.
“The two deals we did earlier in the offseason [with Gray and Contreras], the return isn’t going to look like that at all,” the source said, referring to the five pitching prospects. “The market just isn’t there.”
Donovan, the Cardinals’ lone All-Star in 2025, is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of demand from other teams. Fully aware that Donovan is the kind of gritty, do-everything player who can make good teams great -- think Tommy Edman to the Dodgers over the 2024 and ’25 seasons -- and it’s easy to see why a double-digit number of contenders covet him.
But are those teams willing to pay the steep price -- likely two of an organization’s top 10 prospects -- to add Donovan, who holds even more value because his contract is club-controlled for two years? For now, teams are waiting to see if the price drops as squads get closer to Spring Training. Who blinks first: The rebuilding Cards or Donovan-seeking teams such as the Mariners, Giants, Royals and Astros?
“[Donovan] represents exactly what you want on your team and what you want your young players to follow, so if you’re going to [trade him], it’s going to have to be for a high price,” a source said.
Romero, fresh off a career season that should put him in line for a big raise in 2026 before he hits free agency in ’27, is the kind of versatile reliever any contender could use. He gets lefties out, he has swing-and-miss stuff, he keeps the ball on the ground, and he’s tough under pressure.
St. Louis got great value out of veterans Andrew Kittredge and Phil Maton in their bullpen the past two seasons, and the Cards think the highly respected, all-business Romero could do the same for them in 2026. So, even though Romero could command a Donovan-like bounty, St. Louis is in no hurry to do deals for now.