The St. Louis Cardinal have been putting off getting top players this year and for a while. Now I know Pujols is locked up until 2010 (2011 club option) but they need to lock him up until he retires now.

Living here in STL and watching how the Cardinals sign players like Royce Ring, possibly Trevor Miller (if he\'s not hurt) Joey Thurston, and \"low hanging\" fruit makes me worried about the future. Mr. Dewitt doesn\'t like to spend money and he knows it. We got lucky with Lohse last season but others didn\'t work like Ron Villone. I just don\'t want the Cardinals to hold out and keep waiting. Pujols himself said he will focus on baseball but when the times comes he will start thinking about it. I say get the contract done and make him a huge contract! He\'s 29 years old and I think they should sign him to a:

10 year....200-250 Million Dollar Contract.
Here me out here:
This is his current contract which is up until 2010...
04:$7M, 05:$11M, 06:$14M, 07:$15M, 08:$16M, 09:$16M, 10:$16M, 11:$16M club option ($5M buyout)

Now make this 10 year contract based off of 2011 contract of like 17M and build from there each season. Pujols doing something someone has never done in their career.

01: .329 AVG, 37 HR, 130 RBI,
02: .314 AVG, 34 HR, 127 RBI
03: .359 AVG, 43 HR, 124 RBI
04: .331 AVG, 46 HR, 123 RBI
05: .330 AVG, 41 HR, 117 RBI
06: .331 AVG, 49 HR, 137 RBI
07: .327 AVG, 32 HR, 103 RBI
08: .357 AVG, 37 HR, 116 RBI (was injured as well)
Career: .334 AVG, 319 HR, 977 RBI
Right now 98th overall in Homers
Right now 280th overall in RBI\'S
AT ONLY 29 YEARS OLD!!!!!

If he repeats last season\'s stats this is where he would be:
356 HR: Would move past Greg Vaughn for 73rd (Pending others moving above him)
1,093 RBI: Tied with Jimmy Ryan at 191 (Pending others moving above him)

I know this is long but he is the best player in the game and the Cardinals need to lock him up before the Red Sox, Dodger, Yanks, Mets, etc. come calling

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T.G.

Jay Pain wrote:
I could not agree more if there were no health concerns. It looks like Pujols will be going into 2009 with less health concerns then 2008. But there is always a small doubt in the back of my mind regarding his health. He is arguably the best player in the game, no doubt but ten years could make or cripple the franchise depending how things turn out. If the cardnials could get it done with five years at 25 per season, then I would be on board 100%.

Personally five is fine or six or seven or eight I don\'t care. They just need to lock him up for as long as they can because I don\'t want to see him in another uniform..especially the YANKS!

__________________
T.G.

lol oh gawd... tex at dh and pujols at 1st

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