The agreed upon deadline between the St. Louis Cardinals and star first baseman, Albert Pujols, to work out a contract extension ended yesterday in failure. Strange, really, both parties want Pujols in a Cardinals uniform for the rest of his career, and yet they could not agree. Shades of the Jeter/Yankees earlier this winter. The difference being that everyone fully expected Jeter and the Yankees to agree on something eventually because Jeter is old and would get significantly less if he went to another team. With Pujols though, he is young and still very much in his prime, meaning a lot of teams will be interested in trying to sign him once he files for free agency. You'd think the Cardinals would have just given him what he wants now so that they'd avoid competing with other teams this fall. The Cards offered him what was said to be a 200 million dollar deal that spanned nine or ten years last week that Pujols rejected. Other offers included a share of the Cardinals organization itself.
Pujols rejecting these deals really makes you think if he is interested in staying with the Cards, or cashing in on a monster contract. The offer the Cards made him is not that bad, but it is said that Pujols wants A-Rod money, as in 10-yr, 275 mil. Technically speaking, Pujols should be able to demand whatever he wants because he has been the best hitter in baseball since he came into the League in 2001. He has never hit less than .312. His lowest home run and RBI totals are 32 and 103, respectively. He hit 49 home runs, his career high, the year he played the least amount of games, 143. He has also struck out more than 70 times once since he struck out 93 times as a rookie. The man is a hitting machine, and no one has seen anything quite like him, which brings me to the Cardinals.
The St. Louis Cardinals know they have the best hitter in the game right now, and they know he supposedly wants to finish his career in St. Louis. They also know that he took a home team discount for his last contract, as it was only worth what ended up being 8-yrs, 111 million due to the Cardinals picking up the option for 2011. They knew this day would come eight years ago too, and yet they failed to get the job done. Now it looks like the Cardinals will have to complete with Pujols other suitors these fall. The Cardinals now will most likely have to pay even more than they wanted to due this competition with the likes of the Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, LA Dodgers, and LA Angels.
Personally, I cannot see Pujols in any other uniform than a Cardinals uniform. Pujols is like the Derek Jeter of St. Louis. If the Cardinals don't keep him, the city of St. Louis might riot. Think about it, what does St. Louis have besides Pujols and the Cardinals? They have the St. Louis Blues of the NHL and the St. Louis Rams of the NFL, and both teams are mediocre at best and nowhere's near a championship like the Cardinals are. The Cardinals are in quite the predicament, quite the Pujols predicament.
References
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2011/news/story?id=6131069
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=4574
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/4201009/
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