Cardinals Shut Down Rival For Nolan Arenado: Report

It sounds like the St. Louis Cardinals at least had a little bit of trade interest for third baseman Nolan Arenado from one of the team's biggest rivals.

As the season has gone on, there has been a lot of wild trade speculation about Arenado's future. Each day, mock trades pop up left and right with Arenado's name heavily involved. Most of the noise was baseless early on, now, it's even worse as the Cardinals are doing well. St. Louis is 24-20 and looks like a team that could fight for a playoff spot.

This hasn't stopped the chatter, though. One team that has been floated as a fit for Arenado on multiple occasions is the National League Central rival Chicago Cubs. The speculation never really made sense because why would the Caridnals want to trade a star of Arenado's caliber within the division, especially when he's under contract beyond this season?

Well, the front office seems to agree. The Athletic's Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma recently reported that the Cubs did give the Cardinals a call about Arenado in Spring Training, but St. Louis didn't want to trade the superstar in the division.

"By WAR (FanGraphs), Cubs third basemen are ranked 25th in baseball," Mooney and Sharma said. "Purely on offense, they’re 20th with an 80 wRC+. That’s certainly not great, but it’s also not the type of bottom-of-the-league production the club was getting early last season from catcher and center field.

"Currently, the most productive third basemen in the game are playing for obvious contenders or teams that are unlikely to consider selling or are doubtful on matching up with the Cubs. Nolan Arenado, for example, was a player the Cubs inquired about during spring training, only to be quickly informed that the St. Louis Cardinals were not interested in trading an All-Star within the division to a historic rival."

Hopefully, this puts the speculation to rest when it comes to Chicago.