ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Randy Arozarena didn’t have to say much for his answer to be clear about how much he is looking forward to facing his former team this week.
His eyes lit up, he smiled broadly, rubbed his hands together, looked skyward and then said, simply:
Muchos jonrones.
As in, a lot of home runs.
When acquired from the Cardinals in a January 2020 trade for pitching prospect Matthew Liberatore, Arozarena was the lesser-known half of the Rays’ return (to Jose Martinez) but the more valued.
In the time since, he has been proving the Rays right, starting with his record-smashing 2020 postseason and a solid, albeit inconsistent, offensive output, hitting .272 with 33 homers, 104 RBIs and an .813 OPS in 216 regular-season games.
Now he is eager to show the Cardinals firsthand what they missed out on, and to beat them as well.
“I’m very excited,” Arozarena said via team interpreter Manny Navarro. “A lot of emotions playing against them.”
Not that all three days of the series will be a personal revenge tour.
Arozarena said he remains friends with a number of current Cardinals, mentioning catcher Yadier Molina first. He said he had a “a good relationship” with new manager Oliver Marmol, the bench coach when Arozarena debuted for St. Louis in August 2019. And he appreciates the organization signing him in 2016 when he was playing in Mexico after fleeing Cuba.
“I’m very grateful for the fact that they gave me an opportunity with such a great team and organization at the time, to give me the opportunity to live out my dream,” he said.
“I think it’s going to be fun. And I’m definitely looking forward to playing against them.”
Former Cardinals minor-league teammate Adolis Garcia, now a Rangers outfielder who just saw Arozarena in Texas, expects a show.
“I think he’s very excited,” Garcia said via a team interpreter. “That team was our team. He’d love to hit whatever — three, four, five home runs, whatever is possible.
“He’s a really positive person, and I don’t think he thinks bad of anybody or any team. He doesn’t need extra motivation. But I think (facing them) will make him pretty excited. And they’ve got a lot of pitchers on that team that we played with; you want to give them some competition.”
The Cardinals had reasons to trade Arozarena, primarily that they were deep in young and better defensive outfielders and liked the chance to get a key piece for their future rotation in Liberatore, who they remain very high on. Liberatore debuted last month at age 22 and was 1-1 with a 5.54 ERA in three starts before being sent back to Triple-A last week.
Even St. Louis’ president of baseball operations, John Mozeliak, admits it didn’t look good when Arozarena went off in the 2020 postseason, hitting. 377 with 10 homers, 14 RBIs and 1.273 OPS in 20 games. But he also noted the daily results and fluidity of the game, and how snapshot-evaluations of trades constantly evolve.
“When you think back to what Randy Arozarena did for Tampa, especially in that shortened season of 2020, a very, very impactful postseason, you have to ask yourself, ‘Well, why would the Cardinals trade that person?’” Mozeliak said Monday.
“In fairness, it was really just a depth situation for us. Acquiring a future left-handed starter was something that we thought was very attractive. When you look at our outfield of emerging players, with Harrison Bader, Tyler O’Neill, and Dylan Carlson coming, we just felt like we were dealing from a strength.
“So, clearly, I’m happy for (Arozarena),” Mozeliak continued. “I thought he was always like a really neat kid, a good young player here. And I think, in a way, probably the biggest winner of the deal was just him getting an opportunity to go play somewhere.”
Arozarena, 27, said he has an idea why he was traded, but added politely, “I’ll just keep that to myself.”
He didn’t rule out a connection to a highly publicized incident in which he live-streamed then-Cardinals manager Mike Shildt delivering an expletive-filled clubhouse speech while celebrating a 2019 division-series win on Instagram.
“I think maybe it could have had a little bit of part of it,” Arozarena said, adding that at the time he didn’t put much thought into what he was doing. He later apologized, calling it “a rookie mistake.”
Mozeliak said that with Shildt being fired after the 2021 season, bringing up the incident now was “a lot of ways like spilled milk.”
“You try not to let like moments like that factor into your decision-making,” he said. “Clearly, again, we were dealing from a strength, events happened, and ultimately the decision was made. When I think back to that deal, they had interest in a lot of outfielders. Obviously, the one we decided to trade has been able to do very well for them.”
What the trade did more than anything for Arozarena, once he got over an extended battle with COVID-19 and joined the Rays late in the abbreviated 2020 season, was give him a chance to play, something he may not have gotten in St. Louis.
“I’m very grateful that Tampa Bay saw something in me and they’ve been able to let me show my talent,” Arozarena said. “I think the trade went well for me, and also I think for Tampa Bay, for the team.”
