SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — It’s 7 a.m. on a chilly desert morning and Nolan Arenado is alone on a back field at the Rockies’ spring training complex. He’s wearing a black Rockies hoodie, his baseball cap is pulled on backward and he’s jumping in place to get warm.

A few minutes later, Stu Cole, the Rockies’ infield coach, arrives and begins smacking grounders down the third-base line. With a kid’s gusto, Arenado gloves a hard shot and readies himself for the next one. Cole also lays down a few nubbers near the mound and Arenado charges in, making bare-handed grabs.

“If he’s not in the lineup for a spring game, we do this,” Cole said. “For Nolan, it’s not drudgery. He’s working to be the best, but it’s pure passion. He’s always doing something to try to make himself better.”

Such is the work ethic of Arenado, the 27-year-old, six-time Gold Glove third baseman who last month signed an eight-year, $260 million contract, the largest in Colorado sports history.

So how did Arenado, a second-round draft choice out of high school in 2009, evolve into one of the best players in the game? It’s a story with many chapters.

Growing up in the Southern California town of Lake Forrest, Arenado was a star on all of his youth teams, including an elite club soccer team for whom he played forward. As a senior at El Toro High School, he hit .517 and played a terrific shortstop.

A 2009 draft report suggested that Arenado’s future was possibly as a third baseman, but more likely as a catcher, due to his lack of foot speed. The report said: “He’s duck-footed and lumbers.”

Also in the report: “He has some athleticism that allows him to move with agility despite a lack of speed.”

What the report didn’t mention, but what those close to Arenado knew, was that he was blessed with rare baseball instincts.

“The more time you spend with Nolan the greater appreciation you have for his skill set,” said Jerry Weinstein, a scouting-and-player development assistant for the Rockies, who managed Arenado at High-A Modesto in 2011. “He doesn’t have a great-athlete, Michael Jordan kind of skill set, but it’s an intuitive, instinctive talent.”

Weinstein, 75, has coached baseball for more than 52 years. When he makes a bold statement, one listens, such as: “Nolan has the best internal clock and the best internal compass of any player I have ever seen,” Weinstein said. “When he needs to make that spinning throw from third, he knows exactly where his target is and exactly how much time he has to make the play. He knows baseball in his mind’s eye better than anyone I have ever seen.”

Hard lessons learned

Arenado might be honored in Cooperstown as a Hall of Famer some day, but he’s been knocked down a peg or two more than once.

In 2011, after hitting .298 with 20 home runs and 122 RBIs at Modesto, Arenado was named the MVP of the Arizona Fall League, beating out future stars such as Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. Arenado thought his next step was Coors Field.

When he ran into a wall at Double-A Tulsa in 2012, then-Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd delivered a hard message. O’Dowd told Arenado that he lacked focus, especially on defense, and that he wasn’t getting called up to the big leagues at all in 2012, nor even to start the 2013 season.

“That bothered me a lot,” Arenado recalled. “I was thinking, ‘Then, what am I playing here for?’ My goal was to make the big leagues that season. So for (O’Dowd) to say that, it bothered me big time.

“But then I decided that I was just going to quit worrying about it, play the game hard, and play for my teammates. I decided I was going to have fun playing the game, and playing for my boys in Tulsa. That’s when things started turning around.”