Chicago Cubs: Top three reasons Cubs should pass on Nolan Arenado

Chicago Cubs: Reason #2 – Colorado wants too much for Arenado

If the rumors are true, Colorado would be willing to part ways with Arenado if the Cubs would give up All-Star catcher Willson Contreras and possibly right fielder Jason Heyward. In a separate deal, Chicago would flip Bryant to another club for pitching and prospects.

The almost laughable proposal makes me wonder what color the sky is in Colorado’s world, because they are on another planet.

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First, lets just do a side-by-side comparison of Bryant and Arenado’s careers. Arenado is about two years ahead of Bryant since he came on the scene in 2013 as opposed to Bryant in 2015. Yes, that means that Arenado is older than Bryant in baseball career years.

In two more years, the Cubs superstar would most likely have reached or surpassed Arenado’s numbers if he hadn’t been injured in 2018. That injury and timeout significantly hurt his stats by stopping an otherwise promising career start. To Arenado’s credit, even with his injuries, his stats have remained consistent.

Arenado is eight months older than Bryant and so still has a lot of time to develop at age 26, whereas we may be seeing the best of Arenado right now. Arenado’s home run, double and run totals went down last season from 2018 – although, granted, he still turned in another stellar campaign.

While a trade for Arenado and of Bryant are separate matters, the two are undoubtedly intertwined. One thing is perfectly clear though – the latter is still one of the best players in the game and the Cubs won’t trade him just for the sake of making a deal this offseason.

I think Bryant will have a lot on his mind this season, whoever he ends up playing for but something tells me it just may be his best season ever; as he is really playing for his future.

The question is how much interest is there for Bryant out there?