With Albert Pujols' Wednesday deadline to finish a contract extension approaching and it looking more and more like the star will report to camp without a deal beyond 2011, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is looking for someone to blame.
He's firmly settled on the Major League Baseball Players' Association, telling the St. Louis Post Dispatch that "Pujols' representatives are getting beat up by the union. 'Set the bar. Set the bar.'"
Someone brings this up with every big contract negotation. "The union will make him sign for the biggest contract out there," people say. Sometimes the players do (CC Sabathia, Jayson Werth) and sometimes they don't (Cliff Lee), but it's awfully hard to prove that it's the Union that forces players to accept more money. In this case, La Russa seems to be ignoring quite a bit to make this claim.
Pujols is indisputably the best player in baseball right now, and he has been since at least 2008. He's probably been the best player for longer than that, but from 2003-07 Alex Rodriguez was at least in the conversation. It's A-Rod's 10-year, $275 million deal that's currently setting the market here; he'd been one of the league's best players up to that point in his career and he was in his early 30s.
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Source: http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2011/02/15/tony-la-russa-blames-players-union-for-albert-pujols-contract-d/
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