{"id":25856,"date":"2025-02-14T03:12:57","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T03:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=25856"},"modified":"2025-02-14T03:12:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T03:12:57","slug":"breaking-yankees-interest-in-nolan-arenado-came-with-one-condition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=25856","title":{"rendered":"“BREAKING: Yankees\u2019 Interest in Nolan Arenado Came with One Condition!”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s their terms or the, uh, highway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pittsburgh Pirates v St. Louis Cardinals | Joe Puetz\/GettyImages<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The reason why the Yankees’ foremost insiders have been vehemently denying any interest in a Nolan Arenado trade all winter should be clear by now, if it wasn’t already.<\/p>\n

Pitchers and catchers have arrived at Yankees camp in Tampa, and\u00a0Marcus Stroman is still rostered<\/a>.\u00a0Arenado, despite an erroneous report, isn’t in Jupiter yet,<\/a>\u00a0but should be arriving in a matter of days, despite a trade being John Mozeliak’s stated “Plan 1, 2 and 3” almost a month ago. Both players are marooned in places they probably would prefer not to be.<\/p>\n

It felt as if Stroman’s arrival marked the expiration of the ticking clock that even tangentially connected the Yankees to Arenado’s market. The third baseman is owed $74 million over the next three seasons, and despite rumored “re-engagement” with the Dodgers and Yankees in recent weeks, it’s always felt like the\u00a0Boston Red Sox are the only team equipped<\/a>\u00a0to satisfy St. Louis’ demands (or, at least, approximate them). Of course, they just signed Alex Bregman mashing this entire process into trade dust.<\/p>\n

Cardinals insider Derrick Goold pulled back the curtain just a bit more on Wednesday, too, in the wake of yet another series of\u00a0emphatic denials from Yankees insiders<\/a>\u00a0(who were telling\u00a0most<\/em>\u00a0of the truth).<\/p>\n

Have the Yankees had conversations with the Cardinals on Arenado? It seems so, but all of them stopped abruptly when St. Louis wouldn’t let Brian Cashman dictate every term of the acquisition.\u00a0According to Goold, the Yankees\u00a0<\/a>only wanted to continue chatting if the Cardinals were willing to cover “enough salary to mitigate the risk” of further regression. The Cardinals won’t go as far as the Yankees would like them to, and a trade is unlikely. That’s why Jack Curry wants this conversation to stop. He knows that the Yankees’ and Cardinals’ desires here will never match.<\/p>\n

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