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January 16, 2011

For those of you who are not ESPN Insiders, here is the article:

Pujols serious about contract deadline

Logic tells us that the St. Louis Cardinals and Albert Pujols will work out their differences, because the first baseman is to St. Louis what Stan Musial used to be, and Stan The Man has been omnipresent around the Cardinals in the half century since his career ended. The folks who run the Cardinals know how much Pujols means to the franchise and what his departure would mean.

But the deadline that Pujols gave them to work out a long-term deal — the start of spring training, Derrick Goold writes — is very real, and if that passes without a contract in place, all bets are off. Thereafter, the talks would shift from a nice, one-on-one conversation between the Cardinals and their star player into a straight bidding war.

Pujols is in position to get the biggest contract since Alex Rodriguez’s 10-year, $275 million deal, and he intends to test free agency and get paid. If an offer that comes from the Cubs, Giants, Dodgers, Angels or Mets in the fall is significantly greater than the Cardinals’ proposals, well, he’ll become the Stan Musial for some other franchise.

The Cardinals’ challenge in signing Pujols probably has gotten more difficult for St. Louis this winter, when Jayson Werth got $126 million from the Nationals and Carl Crawford got $142 million from the Red Sox and Cliff Lee got a $24 million-a-year contract from the Phillies. Pujols has been better than any of those players in the past decade, better than anyone, as the greatest of his generation. The Cardinals might have great difficulty squeezing a $28-30 million salary into a $100 million-range payroll that already includes a significant obligation to Matt Holliday, but they have to know by now that somebody will give Pujols what he wants.

Not only is Pujols a great player, but he also would represent, for some franchise, a shift in direction that casual fans would notice. If Frank McCourt’s financial issues forced him to sell the team, can you imagine the impact if the next Dodgers owner announced his arrival with the signing of Pujols? If the Angels struggled again in 2011 and Arte Moreno felt compelled to make a bold move, could there be anyone better than Pujols? If the Cubs flounder in 2011 and the Ricketts family felt the need to invest in a new brand for its franchise, what could be better than wresting a future Hall of Famer away from the archrivals? And the Giants, having cashed in on their investment in Barry Bonds, know better than anyone the box-office power of landing a Hall of Fame-caliber slugger who is destined to challenge benchmarks.

So although the Red Sox and Yankees might not be in play for Pujols because of their investments in Adrian Gonzalez and Mark Teixeira, respectively, there will be a market for a player as great as Pujols.

What will it take?

A whole lot.

For the Cardinals, locking themselves into such an enormous contract would cause a lot of heartburn and might constrict the baseball operations folks as they try to make other moves in the years ahead.

But they already must be asking themselves: What if the Cardinals lose him? How much would that hurt?

A lot of dominoes must fall before that happens, but the possible departure of Pujols — what it would mean for the Cardinals if he walked away and what leverage that possibility creates — has now officially become part of these contract talks.

By the way: The Cardinals have gotten some feelers from other teams on Pujols’ availability in the past year but haven’t acted on any of that. Presumably, their efforts will be focused entirely on signing Pujols until the start of spring training.

Meanwhile, Chris Carpenter is in a waiting game on his contract situation. Colby Rasmus says he must learn from his winter of discontent.

10:03pm

(Notes: 8)