The first news we have in the Albert Pujols contract situation is good news: At a news conference in the Dominican Republic he told reporters that he hopes to have a contract extension with the St. Louis Cardinals before the start of the 2011 season. Pujols is presently under a one-year contract on a team option for $16 million. This doesn't exactly throw water on that most persistent of MLB rumors—that the Cardinals can't afford Pujols, that he must eventually go elsewhere—but it at least gives as an idea that the firemen might be on their way to the hot stove.
↵With the official negotiations yet to begin, any news is good news, but until something leaks out from actual negotiations we can only speculate. In the meantime, I'm convinced that the Cardinals just must resign him. If his contract gets expensive enough it will likely be true that they could do more valuable things with that money when he's 37 or 38. But in terms of showing St. Louis they're serious—of securing the continued fan support that left them on top of the TV ratings heap and sells out so many games regardless of the economic situation the city finds itself in—signing Pujols is the most important thing Bill DeWitt and John Mozeliak can do.
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