The St. Louis Cardinals have until the opening of spring training to sign slugger Albert Pujols. If a deal is not done by then, then negotiations will be cut off and he will test free agency in the fall, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney. General manager John Mozeliak declined Saturday to characterize negotiations. The Cardinals exercised a $16 million option for next season on Pujols' contract in October. Both sides want to keep the negotiations private. "Really, we don't want to sit here and handicap or guess or kind of give any type of gut feel where this thing is headed right now," Mozeliak said. "Hopefully in the near future it's something we can talk more about, but right now I'm not prepared to." Mozeliak also declined to discuss negotiations at a fan forum, where he requested the topic not come up, saying, "I have no idea." Read more: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6025055
