The Bernie Miklasz Show

Third baseman Nolan Arenado checked into Cardinals camp on Sunday morning, took some batting practice and fielded some grounders, and joined in with the entire team in Monday's first full-squad workout.

OK, so what's next?

Or what ISN'T next?

Nolan Arenado will be checking into Camp Jupiter this weekend, or perhaps Monday morning. He has not been traded. He will be the Cardinals third baseman to start the season, and we'll see how it plays out. There's no real reason to start another round of trade rumors and speculation. Time to focus on getting ready for a new year on the diamond.

I don't understand the "it will be awkward" narrative about the Cardinals and their third baseman continuing their relationship after a failed attempt to trade him. And in this video I explain all of the reasons why. I also explain why there's no reason to think there will be any hard feelings. That's ridiculous. Both parties can only benefit if Arenado plays well, and hits well, for the '25 Cardinals. Arenado's teammates? They'll be happy to have 'Nado with them because he makes the Cardinals a better club.

Here we go again, talking about the St. Louis Cardinals and their never-ending saga with third baseman Nolan Arenado.

There was news Wednesday night when Boston signed free-agent Alex Bregman to a three-year deal worth $120 million if he doesn't opt out of it after 2025 or 2026.

The Red Sox were by far the most likely destination for Arenado -- but that's no longer an option. So what's next for Arenado and the Cardinals? Sigh.

In this video I do a "reset" of the situation. The likelihood of a trade has gone down. It's probably a long shot. Do any teams out there have interest in Arenado? And if any of those teams have interest in Arenado, does he have interest in them? Or would he use his no-trade protection again?

To me it isn't a crisis or a big problem if Arenado stays with the Cards. And if he plays well -- and improves offensively -- he will command attention on the trade market for contending teams that need a third baseman by the time of the late-July trade deadline

Greetings. What is the Cardinals upside for 2025? The analytical projection systems aren't favorable ... 78 wins. The sportsbooks over/under line for St. Louis victories is set at 75.5 wins. Ugh.

What would it take for disillusioned or alienated fans to come back to the ballpark or subscribe to the upcoming Cardinals' direct-to-consumer service? And in the final question that I discussed in this video ... if 2025 goes poorly, is it time for a true rebuild? If so, would the fans have a stomach for that?

The Cardinals are reportedly balking at the financial cost of offloading third baseman Nolan Arenado to the Red Sox -- if in fact, a potential trade is actually on the table, and in the final stages of completion. Jeff Passan (ESPN) reports that Cardinals are balking at the financials.

"Moving Arenado could force St. Louis to eat upward of half the money he is owed. Short of that, Boston's interest is iffy."

If there's a trade to be made here, then why would the Cardinals refuse to pay half of the $64 million owed to Arenado? That's $32 million ... which means the Cards would still come out $32 million ahead. So what's the problem here? At the Cardinals annual Winter Warm-Up, president of baseball ops John Mozeliak described trading Arenado as the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 priorities. OK, so where is the urgency? This fits an offseason of contradictions ... no roster upgrades, of course ... but lots and lots of contradictions as the Cardinals swerve from one direction to another.

Their reset is no reset .... because they're trying to win in 2025 and believe they'll be good ... so that really doesn't make it a reset. They're bringing back most of the talent they had in house last season. But the Cardinals keep going back and forth, colliding with their own words and stated goals. They've built a House of Mirrors, and the sad thing is, they have no idea how to get out of it ... even though they created it ... and so they keep running into the walls of mirrors. Good grief.

Bleacher Report's Zachary D. Rymer put together a list of the best and worst current MLB owners as spring training gets underway in advance of the 2025 seasons. Rymer ranked them from No. 1 through No. 30, with No. 1 being the best.

The Top 10 best owners according to Rymer:

Dodgers
Mets
Braves
Astros
Phillies
Yankees
Cardinals
Red Sox
Cubs
Rangers

What's that? Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. is SEVENTH? How can this be? I'm being sarcastic, of course. Because DeWitt's entire body of work as the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals is impressive. But we live in a short attention span culture with too many posers raging against whatever they're in the mood to rage about at a particular time in a desperate pitch for attention.

With all of that hot-take noise, it can be easy to forget -- or intentionally overlook -- all of the success the Cardinals have attained over the last 29 seasons. In recent years DeWitt let the standards slip and inexplicably let the player-development operation fall apart and become outdated. And I have criticized him for it often. But if we're evaluating his ownership over the entire 29-season period, the DeWitt Era has been very good (and rewarding) for Cardinals baseball. Now DeWitt must fix what has gone wrong ... which he has tried to do by hiring Chaim Bloom. That was the first step.

After many years of covering the Super Bowl -- I worked at every Super Bowl from 1983 through 2015 -- I've enjoyed kicking back and watching all of the activities of Super Bowl Sunday ... knowing that I have no work-related duties except for picking up the chicken wings, making the guacamole, making a pile of slider-sized sandwiches, peeling the jumbo shrimp, and putting together a crab dip.

My "work" also includes picking a winner for Super Bowl 59, a rematch of the Kansas City vs. Philadelphia Super Bowl that went down to the final seconds two years ago -- with the Chiefs rallying from a 10-point deficit at the start of the fourth quarter to prevail 38-35.

In this video I offer plenty of timely betting trends, historically relevant betting trends, and pure football factors that could lead to one team defeating the factors. This will be a huge test for a Kansas City team that's striving to win an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl. And if they do that the Chiefs will have claimed four Super Bowl trophies in the last six seasons. Saquon Barkley and the Eagles may have something to say about that.

Aside from the massive project to update and upgrade their minor-league infrastructure and substantially improve their efforts in player development, the St. Louis Cardinals are not doing a "reset" at the major-league level. Not yet, anyway. What they are doing, mostly, is talking out of the both sides of their mouth.

It's supposed to be a "reset" ... but John Mozeliak and Oli Marmol keep talking about having a good team, a surprising and exciting team, in 2025. A team that will exceed expectations. And that's why they're holding onto a couple of their most logical trade candidates, Ryan Helsley and Erick Fedde.

Well, if you aren't going to "reset" with vast playing-time opportunities for young hitters and pitchers ... and you think you have a dandy team that shouldn't be written off ... then why don't you back up your confidence by investing in this roster to enhance its potential for success?

I'm not talking about huge and expensive moves -- there's no chance of the Cardinals going for that. I'm talking about incremental moves that could help make the ballclub deeper and more viable. And bargains are out there.

As I type this the Cardinals are one of only two teams that haven't spend a dollar on major-league free agents this offseason. That's ridiculous. Reset? Sneaky contender? Which is it?

You don't need much of a description here. In the biggest story of the Cardinals' offseason -- which isn't saying much -- Jim Edmonds went off on the Cardinals in a stream-of-consciousness interview on 101 ESPN. It was compelling, confusing, contradictory -- and all over the map. This was the latest example of Jimmy Being Jimmy ... it's his role of a lifetime.

This video is long but I wanted to offer a retrospective on Edmonds the player and the man and his extensive and mostly rewarding career with a St. Louis baseball empire that has fallen into decline and is trying (finally) to restore what has been lost. I'm always interested in Jimmy's views, but I am not obligated to agree or applaud everything he says. But he was a special player, and I'll always be a fan of what he did on the field and in the batter's box.

In what is supposed to be a "reset" season for the St. Louis Cardinals, I wonder if this marketing pitch to fans and media will lead to more legitimate opportunities for their younger, less experienced starting pitchers. Or will it be the outdated, old-school approach as usual?

More MLB teams are transitioning to six-man rotations for larger segments of the season. And because of that and other factors, MLB starting pitchers are now making their starts after five days of rest instead of the standard four days of rest. This is an obvious trend over the last several seasons, as MLB teams evolve. But the Cardinals have been slow to evolve, and their insistence on keeping five-man rotation in 2025 would offer another example of their close-minded outlook and an unwillingness to adapt.

I don't know about you, but I think 2025 is ideal time clearing rotation spots for Michael McGreevy, Quinn Mathews and possibly Tink Hence (later in rge season) just to name a few. There are others.

And with good young starting -pitching prospects making their way to St. Louis, this situation demands creating opportunities -- and one obvious way to do that is by going with a six-man rotation.

There are numerous benefits to utilizing the six-man setup -- and I explain that, and more, in today's video. Thank you.