In mid-January, a huge trade happened. The St. Louis Cardinals sent 8-time All-Star Nolan Arenado to the Arizona Diamondbacks and acquired Jack Martinez. While watching the news about the trade, I just think about Nolan Arenado’s career.
Nolan Arenado made his MLB debut in 2013. So far, he has played 13 seasons in the majors, hitting .282/.338/.507 with 353 home runs and 1184 RBI. At the same time, he has 1921 hits thus far. Arenado is now under an 8-year contract and there are 2 years left of the contract. Hence, under this structure, we will probably see him play for the D-backs in 2026 and 2027.
Looking at Arenado’s career, I’m just wondering if he will be elected to the Hall of Fame. To solve my doubts, I decided to check on the great baseball reference website.
To make things easier, I checked the stats of Scott Rolen, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2023. Scott Rolen played 17 seasons in the majors. He slashed .281/.364/.490 with 316 home runs and 1287 RBI. Moreover, he had stolen 100+ bases. Rolen finished his career with 2000+ hits and 1200+ RBI. Also, he blasted 300+ home runs in his career. His career WAR is 70.1.
Looking at Arenado’s career, so far, he has 1921 hits, 353 home runs and 1184 RBI over 13 seasons in the majors. His WAR is now 57.8. Well, Arenado doesn’t run much. Nonetheless, he has already crushed more home runs than Rolen did.
At the same time, when we look at batting average and OPS, there aren’t huge differences between these 2 players.
Finally, let’s look at the awards they received. Scott Rolen won the 1997 NL Rookie of the Year award. However, Nolan Arenado didn’t. He finished 7th in the 2013 NL Rookie of the Year voting. But, looking at other awards. Nolan Arenado is now an 8-time All-Star. He has already won 10 gold glove awards and 5 silver slugger awards. Scott Rolen was selected to the mid-summer classic 7 times. Moreover, Rolen was an 8-time gold glove award winner and he won the silver slugger award once.
So, when we look at the stats between Arenado and Rolen, at this moment, it’s quite clear that Arenado has blasted more HRs and won more awards than Rolen did. There’s no doubt that Arenado has had a good career thus far. As there are 2 years remaining in his contract, we might cautiously think about what stats Arenado will have at the end of this contract. He has 1921 hits and 1184 RBI now. Well, Arenado didn’t play well in 2025, hitting only .237/.289/.377 with 12 home runs and 52 RBI over 107 games. He had 95 hits last season. Let’s assume that Arenado might play like what he did in 2025, (well, the D-backs certainly won’t be happy about it), in 2027, he shall surpass Rolen in hits and RBI. Nevertheless, in 2027, his career WAR might not reach Rolen’s career WAR. But Arenado should be able to reach 60 career WAR and that will make him a strong candidate. Nonetheless, the first thing is whether Arenado will stay healthy through the season. Furthermore, can he bounce back in a hitter friendly ballpark?
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