Nolan Arenado didn’t attend Winter Warm-up this weekend, but teammate Lars Nootbaar offered a glimpse inside the mind of the Cardinals All-Star as he enters a pivotal year.

Last season, the Cardinals finished 20 games under .500. And Arenado finished with a .774 on-base plus slugging percentage, the lowest he’s posted in a full-length season since 2013, his rookie year (.706).

“He's one of those guys that I compared him to (Michael) Jordan and Kobe (Bryant) a couple offseasons ago — he's a worker, man,” said Nootbaar, who has worked out with Arenado on the West Coast this offseason. “He looks good. He's working hard. He's excited. You know, a motivated Nolan is a scary Nolan.”

The 2023 season wore on Arenado. The passionate perennial All-Star had just a .663 OPS in the second half and only seven second-half homers in 228 at-bats. 

But this offseason, “It's awesome just to see a guy that works that hard and cares that much about the game,” Nootbaar said Sunday. “I think it goes kind of unnoticed sometimes and unappreciated. The guy, he’s a psycho, for lack of a better term. He lives and breathes baseball. And for me, ... it's inspiring because I'm like, ‘I don't have to feel a certain way about wanting to get better because this guy is always doing that.’ ...

“Working with Nolan this offseason, obviously he's probably the best player this century to be able to pull ball in the air successfully at efficient angles. So it's working with him and listening to him and trying to try to get better at that. I'm trying to hone that skill that he's got down so well. That's something I've been working on this offseason.”

Last year, Nootbaar played outfield for Team Japan in the World Baseball Classic. For St. Louis, the outfielder hit .261 with a .784 OPS in 117 games.