St. Louis exercises option on Albert Pujols for 2011
By Editorial Staff
The St. Louis Cardinals picked up the $16 million club option on Albert Pujols for 2011. The expected move guarantees one more summer in St. Louis watching the best player in baseball.
Pujols is coming off another great season in which he led the league with 42 home runs and 118 RBIs. He was also the team leader in batting average along with Matt Holliday at .312. Pujols was surprisingly tops on the team with 14 stolen bases. His all-around year puts him in the MVP discussion, but the team’s disappointing season will likely ruin his chances to take home a fourth award.
The season also saw him make history when he hit his 400th home run and reached the 40-home run mark for the sixth time in his career. Pujols is in elite company in many categories and may one day be the standard in them.
The focus now turns to whether St. Louis fans will get to celebrate those milestones with him.
Pujols is set to become a free agent after next season unless a long-term deal can be reached this offseason. Negotiations to this point haven’t made any progress and St. Louis is starting to sweat over the possibility of losing perhaps the greatest player of this generation. Albert Pujols has always been a St. Louis Cardinal. He is the St. Louis Cardinals and it’s hard to imagine him wearing another uniform. But money can erase all the memories and loyalty in a second.
If the Cardinals don’t lock him up this winter, a bidding war in the open market won’t end well for the Cards. St. Louis needs to get a deal done and thank Pujols for all that he’s done. There is no price tag for what he has done in the community and on the field.
In the end, I think he will remain in St. Louis for his entire career. He is a grounded superstar who doesn’t seem too wrapped up in his ego and the size of his paycheck. That paired with the rich St. Louis baseball history and arguably the best fans in the game should keep Pujols swinging for the record books in the next decade.