Fangraphs has been startlingly thorough in its plumbing of the St. Louis Cardinals’ most horrifying nightmares. There were five or six articles yesterday about the impact of Adam Wainwright needing elbow surgery, and recently they also decided to explore the possibility of Albert Pujols joining

Here’s what it comes down to: Pujols will likely be a free agent at the end of the 2011 season. Kosuke Fukudome, Carlos Silva, and Carlos Pena, at the very least, will be free agents on the Cubs’ end. They’ll have a lot of money to throw around, because they’re the Cubs.

As Chris Cwik, the author, notes, the Cubs have a lot of holes to fill, but at the same time signing Pujols would likely earn them a pass from their… occasionally unhappy fanbase, at least for a year. But I can’t see why Pujols would join a losing team, lest he throw off every last bit of goodwill he earned by saying all the right things throughout his Cardinals career, so the Cubs will have to find some way to compete on the relative cheap in 2011.