MILWAUKEE • Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and general manager John Mozeliak leave the Pfister Hotel today having re-established dialogue with the representative for free agent first baseman Albert Pujols.
Whether the process was advanced is open to interpretation.
DeWitt and Mozeliak met for more than an hour late Tuesday night with Pujols' longtime agent, Dan Lozano, but will apparently wait before modifying the club's 10-month-old offer that was rejected before spring training.
Both parties confirmed the meeting but abstained from providing additional details.
"The contents of any meeting or plans for any future meetings are considered confidential. But as far as acknowledging there being a meeting here, it's true," Mozeliak said.
Lozano also offered confirmation, "but beyond that I really don't have anything to say about the process."
Few teams have stepped forward to publicly voice their interest in either Pujols or fellow superstar first baseman Prince Fielder. A slow-developing market could push the process for both players closer, or even beyond, next month's winter meetings in Dallas.
Pujols cut short a trip to the Dominican Republic last weekend to meet with the Miami Marlins, tour their new downtown stadium scheduled to open next season, and receive a reported nine-year offer. The offer is not believed to match the Cardinals' nine-year bid, which averaged $22 million-$22.75 million per season. Lozano declined to say if and when Pujols may visit another club.
Mozeliak referred to talks as "confidential" Tuesday and reiterated Wednesday an aversion to making the process a public one.
Tuesday night's meeting at the headquarters hotel for Major League Baseball's general managers' meetings represented the first face-to-face negotiation since Pujols cut off talks upon entering spring training last February. Though he had hoped the process to be a quick one, Pujols, like Fielder, may find the market slower to form. Three teams contacted Lozano with their interest within 24 hours of Pujols becoming available, and as many as six are thought to consider themselves potential players for the three-time NL most valuable player.
To date, the Marlins are the only team beside the Cardinals known to have tendered an offer. Sensitive to driving the market, the Cardinals may be more inclined toward patience.
Likewise, the Milwaukee Brewers are the only team known to have met this week with agent Scott Boras about Fielder. Mozeliak indicated Tuesday that the Cardinals do not intend to get involved for Fielder, even if Pujols ends up elsewhere.
Pujols had little to say about his pending free agency during the season and has refrained from further comment since the Cardinals' World Series clincher last month.
Neither side ruled out a follow-up meeting or teleconference within the next week. DeWitt and Mozeliak have consistently refrained from offering a desired timetable to reach a resolution, though Mozeliak refuted a St. Louis broadcast report that an announcement of a deal was imminent.
"I don't think a timetable has been determined," Mozeliak said. "Even if we do lay something out privately, we're probably not going to go public."
The Cardinals have waited before. Their most recent negotiation with one of their own high-profile free agents took them into January before re-signing left fielder Matt Holliday to a seven-year, $120 million deal.
