The St. Louis Cardinals certainly had an odd day on Wednesday.
St. Louis has been in trade rumors all offseason to this point with Nolan Arenado looking like a lock to be playing elsewhere in 2025. He has roughly $74 million on his deal left over the next three years and St. Louis wants to trim payroll and give playing time to younger players to see what they have.
The Cardinals tried to deal Arenado to the Houston Astros, but Arenado reportedly turned the deal down using his no-trade clause.
What will the Astros do now? FanSided's Cody Williams made a list of three possible backup plans for Houston now and suggested that fellow Cardinals star Paul Goldschmidt could be a "dark horse" option.
"There's a chance that (Dana Brown) and the Astros brass would look at Paul Goldschmidt and not repeat the mistakes made with the Jose Abreu signing previously," Williams said. "While I understand that trepidation, though, the acquisition of Isaac Paredes in the Kyle Tucker trade and his versatility at the corners could offer Houston the flexibility to pursue a first baseman instead of another third baseman.
"And on the Goldschmidt front, there are some signs that 2024 was a down season that he'll bounce back from particularly in a better situation. As ESPN's Kiley McDaniel noted early in the offseason, Goldschmidt's second half was noticeably better than a struggle-filled first half of the year and on par with the player he was in 2023. That's not nothing and could be worth investing in. Moreover, the Astros' involvement in the Arenado trade at all shows that they're willing to bet on history and bounce-backs but prefer to do so at limited cost."
Goldschmidt is available in free agency and has been suggested as a fit for the Astros in the past. This sounds like a pretty logical fit.