Sometimes you just have to laugh at the kinds of trades fans say should happen on Twitter. Other times, you have to laugh, and also kinda pull your hair out when Boston Red Sox fans thought the St. Louis Cardinals were just going to throw Ivan Herrera into a Nolan Arenado trade to move his *some* of his contract.

Yes, you read that right. If you were active on social media this offseason, it was hard to avoid the countless Red Sox fans who were convinced they were getting the Cardinals’ young star in an Arenado trade because the Cardinals were “so desperate” to move his money that the Red Sox had that kind of bargaining power. Needless to say, no such deal ever happened, nor was there any chance of it. Because if it were, the Red Sox would have accepted in a heartbeat due to how foolish of a move it would have been for St. Louis.

You know a fake trade proposal is bad when it gets beat writers commenting on it. After Ivan Herrera’s huge three-run blast against the Red Sox earlier this season, Chris Cotillo, who covers the Red Sox for MassLive.com, poked fun at the rest of Red Sox Twitter for their constant barrage of trade ideas.

Red Sox fans were convinced that they were going to be able to get Ivan Herrera in a Nolan Arenado trade this offseason.

Trust me, the trades got even more bonkers at times, with some Red Sox fans even believing they could get Herrera AND Ryan Helsley in that deal. Wild times.

For some reason, Red Sox fans were fixated on the idea that the Cardinals would want Triston Casas, whom they massively overrated in trade proposals. In Casas’s first full big league season, he posted a 130 wRC+ and 1.7 fWAR, which is great offensive production but a bit limited upside-wise by playing first base and DH (and mind you, he was a very poor defensive first baseman). But in 2024, he only played in 63 games and was a 119 wRC+ hitter over that stretch. Not exactly setting the world on fire there.

Ivan Herrera, on the other hand, played in more games than Casas in 2024 (72), posted a higher wRC+ (127), had one more year of control, and played a more valuable position defensively. Oh, and don’t forget the fact that the Cardinals had already moved Willson Contreras to first base and were a left-handed heavy lineup, so Casas would have become the Cardinals’ third left-handed DH option alongside Alec Burleson and Nolan Gorman, and then leaving Pedro Pages to be the primary catcher. Yeah, that was never happening.

Here are just two of hundreds of takes you can find on Twitter that believed that deal was possible.

What is even crazier to me is that Red Sox fans believed the Cardinals would have to give up even more in the deal to make that happen. Some believed the Cardinals would still have to eat some of Arenado’s deal; others wanted Helsley involved too or believed that the Cardinals would need to also include prospects in this deal. Hey, even some Red Sox fans simply wrote off Herrera as a trade piece, believing Casas was far too valuable to part with.

I recently wrote about how Herrera has produced like a top-15 hitter in baseball since 2023, and if he can stick behind the plate, he could be one of the best players in today’s game. Again, Red Sox fans wanted that guy just thrown into an Arenado deal because Baseball Trade Values told them the values worked that way.

Casas had a terrible start to his 2025 season, slashing .182/.277/.303 with a 57 wRC+ before a left patellar tendon rupture ended his season after just 29 games. Herrera, on the other hand, has posted a .419/.480/.907 slash line (271 wRC+) in his limited time due to his own injured list stint. Now that Herrera is back and rolling again, he will continue to prove just how foolish those takes were from this offseason.

Hey, Cardinals fans are not immune to these wild trade ideas either. There are fans who love to create fake trades involving three players they don’t like on the roster and think that would be enough to acquire a star, as if the opposing team doesn’t also know the limitations of those players.

Anyways, I’m not even kidding when I say I think about that saga multiple times a week these days. Every time I see Herrera, I am reminded of the absurd takes that Red Sox fans had. I know other media in Cardinals Nation lament those days as well.

Thankfully, Herrera is a Cardinal, and frankly, there was never really a doubt about that. He’s awesome, he looks like a budding star, and Boston fans can dream about a different young star magically ending up on their roster.