Nolan Arenado, the Cardinals’ third baseman, is heading into the 2024 season with a big chip on his shoulder.
Nolan Arenado, the St. Louis Cardinals’ third baseman, already has a resume that most baseball players can only dream about. Arenado is an eight-time All-Star, ten-time Gold Glove Award winner, five-time Silver Slugger, and three-time National League home run leader. However, the 32-year-old third baseman is approaching the 2024 season with the mindset that he has everything to prove.
According to Arenado, he feels like an inexperienced third baseman attempting to establish himself as a long-term keeper for the Colorado Rockies, and he approaches the start of the Cardinals’ 2024 Spring Training as if he’s attempting to secure a daily role.
“I feel like I have something to prove. It’s almost as if I’ve come to spring training with the same mindset I had in Colorado during my first few years, where I was trying to establish myself. For whatever reason, that is how I ended up here this spring. I just feel that way. “I feel like I have something to prove again,” Arenado told Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
It’s understandable that Nolan Arenado would feel this way following his and the Cardinals’ 2023 season. In terms of personal performance, Arenado’s production dropped dramatically last season. His OPS fell from.891 to.774, and his WAR went from an outstanding 7.4 to a middle-of-the-pack 2.6, bringing him as close to league average as he has been since his breakout year in 2014.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals struggled as Arenado’s production plummeted. St. Louis, a perennial powerhouse in the NL Central, won just 71 games in 2023, the first time since 2007 when the team finished below.500.
Nolan Arenado understands that turning things around for himself will help orchestrate a massive turnaround for a Cardinals team that is entering unknown territory.
“It’s quite simple: I want to improve my individual performance this year compared to last year. From a team standpoint? I wish the best for them. I know that if I play and feel my best, I can help this club win a lot of games,” Arenado added.
