Fact: Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado is a future Hall of Famer and most likely a first-ballot future Hall of Famer. The question is, what hat will he be wearing when he achieves baseball immortality?

The natural assumption is, of course, that it will be a Colorado Rockies hat, for no other reason than they are the only team he has played for in his seven major league seasons and the team that signed the five-time All-Star, seven-time Gold Glover, three-time Platinum Glover, and four-time Silver Slugger to a monster eight-year/$260 million contract on February 26, 2019, which runs through the 2026 season and includes an opt-out clause after the 2021 season.

Or will he?

Late Monday evening, it was being (very) widely reported that the Newport Beach, CA native and Rockies second-round draft pick out of El Toro High School in Lake Forest has “disillusionment” with the “disrespect” he is getting from the Rockies for their lack of effort to improve their team this off-season. This (in part) from ESPN’s Jeff Passion:

The disillusionment that has percolated for months in behind-the-scenes meetings between Colorado Rockies leadership and the camp of star Nolan Arenado bled into the public sphere on Monday. After Rockies general manager Jeff Bridich declared that the team had ended trade talks for Arenado, the third baseman shot back to MLB.com, accusing the team of “a lot of disrespect from people there that I don’t want to be a part of.”

That ‘public sphere’ is, of course, Twitter, on which even Arenado’s mother Millie retweeted a post and article link by The Denver Post’s Kyle Newman about her son’s displeasure with the hand that feeds him:

As you might expect, the media avalanche that followed immediately led to speculation (and rumors) that the Rockies would now be more than willing to trade their disenchanted megastar third baseman. And while the mere thought of such a trade is unquestionably intoxicating for all 29 other MLB teams, very few of them have the resources – i.e., money and/or prospects – to draw so much as a glance from Rockies owners Charles and Richard Monfort or general manager Jeff Bridich.

…except, of course, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Although Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has been (characteristically) quiet this offseason, one has to believe that even he sees the thought of the undisputed best third baseman in the game today in a Dodgers uniform as intoxicating. And given the fact that the Dodgers have both the money and the prospects to pull off what would arguably be the biggest trade of the offseason (or the decade, for that matter), there may actually be some substance to the aforementioned speculation (and rumors).

Stay tuned…

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