Father Time Can’t Keep Nolan Arenado Down

I think we can all agree that baseball is at its best when its top stars are performing. This year is a true testament to that.  

We are entering mid-May, having seen true resurgences from Mike Trout and Jacob deGrom. Then there’s Yordan Alvarez, who has returned from injury and is playing at an MVP-caliber level.  

Then we have a former Platinum Glove winner who many had deemed as “done”, “cooked”, or “washed.” Whatever you wanted to call it, Nolan Arenado has righted the ship and is now playing more like the Nolan Arenado we have come to know and love.  

Despite still playing at a high level at the time of the trade from Colorado to St. Louis, expectations were never met during Arenado’s tenure with the Redbirds. Even though that pertains to the team as a whole, the addition of the third baseman was supposed to be the piece that put them over the top and put them in a position to contend for years to come. 

When the Cardinals decided it was time to hit the reset button, it was not a matter of if, but of when Nolan Arenado would be moved to a new team. One that he would deem a right fit, as he was in control of the destination due to the no-trade clause he had already enacted once before. The previous trade would have made him a Houston Astro just a couple of years ago.  

Done Deal

Well, the deal was done, and Arenado approved the trade that sent him to the Arizona Diamondbacks for right-handed pitching prospect Jack Martinez. One, in which the Cardinals would be eating the majority of the salary, $31 million of the remaining $42 million, just to facilitate the trade. 

In his five years with the Cardinals, Arenado slashed .266/.322/.456 with 118 home runs, 424 RBI, putting up an 18.4 fWAR during that span. Funny enough, although I alluded to him not being the same version of himself in St. Louis that he was in Colorado, he put up his highest fWAR season in his second season with the Cardinals at 7.2. It was also the highest wRC+ (149) of his career as well.  

What ultimately soured his time with the Cardinals was his final season with the club, where he hit .237/.289/.377, playing in a career-low 107 games and hitting a career-low 12 home runs, excluding the 2020 shortened season. Not to mention the remaining salary being as high as it was for a team that knew they weren’t going to be competing in the next couple of years. Paying $42 million for an aging third baseman off the worst season of his career is not something that many, if any, teams would jump at the chance to do. 

Then came Arenado’s opportunity to change the narrative with his new ballclub, which, if you were to predict the type of season he had from his first at-bat of the spring, you would’ve thought he was going to right the ship.

Nolan Arenado goes deep in his first AB with the Diamondbacks against his former team! pic.twitter.com/Mzck9WLNgE

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) February 20, 2026

A Dreadfully Slow Start

However, the start to this season was much like the previous year, where Arenado failed to reach the level of play he was at when he was at his peak. Granted, we are now multiple years removed from that, but it was still painful to see. There was also the downtrend in his defense after the 2022 season, which I referenced earlier. He went from 20 Defensive Runs Saved in 2022 to zero in 2023, followed by consecutive 6-DRS seasons. All three seasons had produced the lowest of his career.  

The first two weeks of this season were more of the same.  

Ugly.  

In those first 49 plate appearances, he was hitting .167 with a 26.5 K% and a -1 wRC+. As we all know, 100 is the league average for wRC+. Yes, the negative is an accurate depiction of just how badly he was performing.  

I, for one, could not fathom coming to terms with the fact that one of the best third basemen, in my opinion, of this past generation had simply fallen off the proverbial cliff. Thankfully, he was able to overcome that and is starting to show us glimpses of the Nolan Arenado of the past.  

Nolan Arenado in his last 7 games:

.360/.407/.640
2 HR
6 RBI
2 BB | 3 K
1.047 OPS
4 multi-hit games

Looking like his old self again 👀 pic.twitter.com/vbznRorQyD

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) April 23, 2026

Heating Up in the Desert

Since that initial two-week stretch, starting April 12, the season has just been trending up. In the 100 plate appearances following, Arenado has hit .333/.400/.598 with a 177 wRC+, cut his strikeout rate down to 17%, and increased the walk rate to 10%. 

The ugliest part of the initial stretch was that he had a 0% barrel percentage, only 9 hard hit balls, in those two weeks. The next period provided us with 8 barrels and a hard hit percentage just a tick under 30%.  

As all players do throughout their careers, they tinker. Arenado has been no different, despite the high level of consistency he was playing with since his debut. The last couple of seasons do stand out, though. Where I notice the changes the most is in his batting stance.  

In the past four seasons alone, you can see above that he has been having trouble deciding on how he is going to simply stand in the box. In turn, this has also played a factor in how he can attack the ball, and where he actually has the most advantageous spot to do it in. Being that 2025 was his worst season, you can see that standing too far back, while some would think would be beneficial to the hitter, was actually detrimental to his game. While it gave him more time to catch up to the fastball, it became the offspeed pitchers that caused him the most trouble.  

Per Statcast data found on FanGraphs, Arenado was posting negative run values on both sliders (-6.2) and changeups (-1.8) in 2025. So far in 2026, with the adjustment to his stance, he has been able to level those numbers out. The slider currently sits at –1.4, while the changeup is at 0.8. Outstanding? Not really. Better? You bet. 

As a whole, entering play on May 15, Arenado’s season numbers sit at .274/.329/.452 with six home runs, 20 RBI, a 118 wRC+, and has accumulated 0.8 fWAR in 149 plate appearances. The lower counting stats are likely due to the fact that he had predominantly found himself batting toward the bottom third of the lineup for most of the year.

While we are no longer likely to see the near .300 hitter with 30+ home runs, it’s nice to see Arenado play at this level after he was seemingly left for dead by a lot of baseball fans after what looked to be another lost season for the future Hall of Famer.