No, Nolan Arenado was not wearing a Dodgers hat in Christmas IG story

At this point, it's hard to tell where exactly the Dodgers stand on Nolan Arenado. He stirred up trade rumors all by himself with multiple hints dropped on Instagram early in December, and the Dodgers were on his list of teams he'd waive his no-trade clause for. Still, as the chatter grew, the Dodgers seemed firm on keeping Max Muncy as their Opening Day third baseman.

Arenado blocked a trade to the Astros not long after, and although he cited his desire not to be traded that early in the offseason, reports suggested that he was still waiting to hear a categorical 'no' from the Dodgers, and that LA had been intentionally downplaying their interest in him to the media.

So, who knows? Although Arenado will probably want to know where he's going, if he's going anywhere, before the start of spring training, that still gives the Dodgers and Cardinals a little over two months to figure out if they can make a deal work, or if interest is still there at all.

However, that hasn't stopped Dodgers fans from looking for even more hints in Arenado's social media activity. On Christmas Eve, some thought that they'd spotted him in a Dodgers cap at a party, but it was quickly debunked, with even more eagle-eyed fans finding a World Baseball Classic logo on the hat's back in other photos.

Dodgers fans are still looking for trade clues in Nolan Arenado's Instagram stories

To be fair to any fans who mistook it as a Dodgers cap, it does look a lot like Dodger blue. However, Arenado also played for Team USA in the WBC in 2017, who beat Team Puerto Rico in an 8-0 rout in the finals to win the United States' first championship.

The Muncy-Arenado debate is an interesting one; Muncy is the far superior offensive player, but the same can be said of Arenado defensively. Muncy is also cheaper, while Arenado has a mountain of accolades behind him that could point to the potential for the Dodgers to recover some of his old glory.

If the Dodgers did get Arenado without having to give up Muncy, the likeliest solution would be moving Muncy to second base and giving Gavin Lux the boot. Muncy's performance at second base has been historically rocky, but it'd be the only way to keep him in the lineup. There'd still be a lot of question marks on how well Arenado would actually be able to perform, given his decline over the last two seasons, but the Dodgers clearly have a hard time saying 'no' to a star.