Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Pujols Deadline Passes With No Contract

   The Wednesday at noon negotiation deadline which Albert Pujols imposed on the St. Louis Cardinals has passed and agreements between Pujols and the Cardinals cease to exist.  Albert Pujols is entering the final year of his contract at age 3, but is still widely regarded as the best player in the MLB today.  It is widely speculated that Pujols is wanting a contract that is 10 years worth an assumed 300 million dollars.  That would be the biggest baseball contract of all time.  If any one baseball player deserves a contract that big, it would be the best player in the game today and over the past decade.
  
   Albert Pujols is someone that deserves to be paid.  He has been loyal to St Louis, he is a great ambassador for the game of baseball, and he is the best player of the past ten seasons.  Pujols is an all time great guy, he is what is known as a generational guy.  Meaning a player like him comes around about once in a generation.  I mean, the guy has never had a season where he did not have 30 plus home runs with over 100 runs batted in.  Oh yeah, and hit over .300!

   I honestly though the Cardinals front office would wake up and realize that keeping Pujols in St Louis is a must.  The Cardinals have one of the best fan bases in baseball and they would not be happy to lose their beloved Albert.  It would be a shame to do that to the city and the team.  The Cardinals would not suffer as bad as the Cleveland Cavaliers did when they lost Lebron James, but they would definitely suffer.  I do think fans would be more heart broken than the NBA fans in Cleveland.  St. Louis is a baseball town.  They love their man, Albert and they want him to stay a Cardinal.

   The only disadvantage Albert has by asking for such a lucrative contract is that if the Cardinals do not comply with him and his goes to a team who will pay him what he wants, how good his that teams future?  A team that could possibly afford him would not be able to put the players around him to win consistently and win a championship.  He would have to be surrounded by minimum wage players.

   Albert Pujols will be a first ballot hall of famer.  He is having a career that is being compared with Babe Ruth.  He has three MVP awards, two gold gloves, and a World Series ring.  I do not see why the Cardinals front office is waiting for, or what they are debating.  To me, when you have a player like Pujols, you keep him at all cost.  When I think about the Cardinals not paying him and possibly letting him go somewhere else, I think about Babe Ruth.  Would you pay Babe Ruth what he wanted? Do you think if the Boston Red Sox could go back in time, they would have disposed of Babe Ruth?  I do not think the Cardinals will let that happen to them.