Brendan Donovan’s Status After Cardinals Trade Nolan Arenado

Things got a bit more interesting for the St. Louis Cardinals in Tuesday.

St. Louis traded Nolan Arenado to the Arizona Diamondbacks after a year of endless rumors and speculation. Finally, the noise was put to rest and Arenado waived his no-trade clause to get the deal done.

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The Cardinals have now traded Arenado, Willson Contreras, and Sonny Gray away. The Cardinals entered the offseason looking to get deals done and have now dealt all three guys away with no-trade clauses. That's a successful offseason in itself. With a few weeks to go until the Spring Training kicks off, there are a few moves the team could make, if they saw fit. The most notable would be trading Brendan Donovan.

The Cardinals have gotten three trades done

Sep 23, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Brendan Donovan (33) collects a ball hit by the San Francisco Giants during the eighth inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Eakin Howard-Imagn Images | Eakin Howard-Imagn Images

After the Cardinals traded Arenado on Tuesday, The Athletic's Katie Woo gave an update for the Donovan market on MLB Network.

"It's still very high," Woo said of interest in Donovan. "I think that there has been some surprise across the industry that he has not been traded yet. But when you think about what the Cardinals have been doing from their perspective, Brendan Donovan represents their best chance to get as much of a return as possible in terms of prospect value. Now, the Cardinals have been very active this offseason. They've traded Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras, and now Nolan Arenado. But the primary focus of those trades was to offload significant, veteran money.

"The Cardinals are paying a lot of money for a lot of those contracts that they have moved off and the return has been second nature. They also wanted to open up some spots for their younger guys by offloading the veterans. That is not the case with Donovan. Donovan has real interest. He has been connected to the Mariners, the Giants, and even the Red Sox. That would be the third time the Cardinals have traded with the Boston Red Sox this winter. The reason why it's taking a little bit longer is because St. Louis is still deciding whether or not it wants to trade him. Again, it comes down to the prospect return. They're not going to do it unless they're simply blown away by the offer."

With Arenado, Contreras, and Gray out the door, the Cardinals don't necessarily need to trade Donovan. Keeping him with this young team to at least begin the 2026 season wouldn't be a bad thing at all, especially because he can play all over the field and Lars Nootbaar is up in the air for Opening Day after undergoing heel surgery.

If a team makes an offer the Cardinals can't refuse, sure. But St. Louis has gotten the heavy lifting done.

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