Colorado Rockies: Making sense of a Chicago Cubs-Nolan Arenado trade

Why a straight up trade won’t work

In terms of the contracts, Bryant is slated to make $18.6M this season with one more year of arbitration in 2021 before he enters free agency. Arenado will make $35M this season. Per Jesse Rogers’ suggestions, the Rockies would end up picking up around $7M-$8M of Arenado’s contract meaning they’d be paying around $26.6M at most for Bryant with the Cubs paying around $27M for Arenado. While that makes the money even, there’s a huge concern:

If Arenado waived his opt out then the Cubs have Nolan for seven years while Bryant only has two years left on his contract before he’s a free agent. With Nolan appearing to currently be the better player, the Rockies would be missing out on a ton of value if Bryant leaves after two seasons and Arenado stays with the Cubs for all remaining seven years. They could potentially flip Bryant if they wanted to in a year or so, but it’s an additional layer that likely wouldn’t add up.

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On the flip side, everything is indicating that Arenado would likely opt out after two seasons with the Rockies anyways if no trade were to take place before the end of the 2021 season, so they almost are forced to look at things from a two year window regardless. And if they’re still aiming to compete in these next couple years, which all signs from the Front Office indicate, then they will continue to look at Major League ready pieces instead of gathering prospects.

It’s a complicated mess that Bridich has built himself due to a multitude of factors. Regardless of the mess, Bryant for Arenado straight up doesn’t add up. So who do the Cubs need to throw in?