The Cardinals and Albert Pujols are having their own little Winter Warm-Up, and it has nothing to do with overpriced autographs and souvenirs.

The two sides are talking contract.

As an added bonus they're talking out of both sides of their mouths, too.

First we had Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak — who has maintained a sacred vow of silence on the Pujols talks for many weeks — suddenly blurting out news of a hard contract deadline imposed by Pujols' agent.

What was the point of that? Aren't the negotiations supposed to be private?

The Pujols camp wasn't thrilled by Mozeliak's spasm of candor. I can see why. If Pujols and agent Dan Lozano are serious about following through with this stance, if they remain rigid in enforcing it, then it makes them look unreasonable.

Oh.

That's probably why Mozeliak put it out there.

There's no legitimate reason for Pujols and Lozano to take such a brawny position by insisting on a deal by the beginning of spring training — or else. If the Cardinals don't hand over the desired amount of loot by Feb. 18, then negotiations presumably would be shut down for the 2011 season, and Pujols would become a free agent in the fall.

Now, if this is simply a ploy by Lozano to put a little urgency and adrenaline into the proceedings by making Cardinals Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. sweat, then I hope it works. If it works, we'll soon forget about the hard-core tactics.

This deal should have been done by now. DeWitt actually cost himself money by not being more proactive. By waiting until the end of 2010 to get started in earnest on contract talks with Pujols, DeWitt allowed the marketplace to quake and shift under his loafers.

The price of retaining Pujols has gone way up. Philadelphia gave five years, $125 million to first baseman Ryan Howard and deals to pitchers Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee that averaged $20 million and $24 million a year, respectively. Washington handed outfielder Jayson Werth seven years at $126 million. Boston gave outfielder Carl Crawford seven years and $142 million.

And we certainly have to point out that DeWitt and Mozeliak added to the market inflation by signing outfielder Matt Holliday to a seven-year deal worth $120 million last offseason, absent long-term offers to Holliday from other teams.

By acting much sooner on Pujols, DeWitt and Mozeliak could have set the market. But the Cardinals allowed other impulsive teams to do that, and now DeWitt is in the position of having to comply with the updated market rate by paying Pujols accordingly.

And Pujols deserves it. As I pointed out in a column written in October, the Cardinals have benefited and prospered from the extraordinary, Hall of Fame-caliber production supplied by Pujols at a bargain rate for 10 years.

Only once in his 10 years has Pujols ranked among the game's top 25 highest-paid players in a season, according to the annual salary survey done by USA Today. A decade of Pujols has cost the Cardinals an average of about $9 million a year — a rate lower than what the team is paying pitcher Kyle Lohse on an annual basis.

Pujols has earned his status as major league baseball's No. 1 player. That surely should put him above Ryan Howard. And right there with the average of $27.5 million a year that the New York Yankees are paying third baseman Alex Rodriguez.

So DeWitt should pay up. Pujols is already making $16 million, so what we're really talking about here is an extra $10 million to $15 million a year for the three-time league MVP. In that context, it's not as dramatic as it first seems.

In Cincinnati, DeWitt's father, Bill Sr., attained baseball infamy by being the executive who traded Frank Robinson to Baltimore. In his first season (1966) with the Orioles, Robinson won the Triple Crown. And the Orioles won the World Series.

Does DeWitt Jr. really want to be remembered as the guy who let one of the best players in baseball history walk as a free agent? Some legacy.

But if Pujols and Lozano are absolute in sticking with this spring-training deadline, they aren't being fair. They're needlessly drawing a line.

Pujols and the Cardinals are a great match. They've made beautiful baseball together. That should count for something, including flexibility on both sides of this negotiation.

Pujols has a dream existence in St. Louis. Fans worship him. The manager lets Pujols do whatever he wants to do. Pujols can ignore the third-base coach and run through stop signs. Pujols is the boss in the clubhouse. Pujols is allowed to pick on Colby Rasmus if he wants to. Pujols doesn't have to tolerate much fuss from the St. Louis media. How many players in professional sports have such a sweet, smooth, one-sided, stress-free setup?

Does Pujols really want to start over at a new place for a few dollars more? If he leaves the Cardinals does he really believe his new team will give him free run of the place and a separate set of rules, the way he has it here?

And isn't Pujols always the one saying he wants to be like Stan Musial by spending his entire career with the Cardinals?

Well, when you invoke Musial in this town, then you're setting the highest of standards. And you have to try and live up to it.

Please allow me to repeat: When it comes to the money, I'm on Pujols' side here. DeWitt has to take care of him. But suppose the Cardinals' offer comes close yet isn't exactly what Pujols wants? If Pujols loves playing here so much, would he really sign elsewhere over a relatively minor amount?

If that's the case, then Pujols will come across as a phony. It's one thing to say you want to be a Cardinal for life. It's another thing when the reality is something different: Cardinal for life, but only if it means being the game's highest-paid player.

I can understand why Pujols and Lozano are annoyed over the Cardinals' failure to express-lane the negotiations until recently. But that still doesn't justify terminating contract talks by the start of spring training.

If progress has been made, the Cardinals and Pujols should continue to talk during the season. If there's any chance for the gap in money and years to be bridged, then Pujols should keep an open mind, and an open door.

If Pujols really cares about this franchise and his adoring fans, then he owes it to his constituency to go the distance with this and exhaust every chance of getting a deal done. Given his history with this franchise and fan base, you don't just break off negotiations in the middle of February.

And I see where Pujols is playing the "distraction" card. Sunday he explained to reporters that he doesn't want contract talks to spill over into the regular season to disrupt him or his teammates.

That's bogus. This contract speculation has been swirling for a while now, so where is the evidence of a distraction? I don't recall seeing Pujols being bugged much about his contract once the regular season got underway over the the last two, three years.

Over the last three seasons, Pujols has won two MVP awards and finished second in the voting the other time. He has batted .331 with an average of 42 homers and 123 RBIs, with an on-base percentage of .439. Are those the numbers of a distracted player?

The "distractions" would be there, and perhaps worse, even if Pujols sticks with this early deadline. He'll be asked more questions, not fewer. The media will still write and talk and blog and yap about it. His teammates and manager Tony La Russa and Mozeliak and DeWitt Jr. will be badgered about it, too. There isn't a chance of that going away. Pujols' personal public-relations man discovered that Sunday when he failed to suppress contract questions during Albert's news conference. The clumsy, strong-arm attempts to put reporters in line made Pujols look silly, but at least it was good comedy.

Pujols and Lozano must think everyone is naïve.

Here's what they don't want to tell you: By enforcing this spring-training deadline, Pujols and Lozano conveniently get an advance opportunity to market Pujols' free-agent campaign.

If the Cardinals don't have an agreement in place by spring training, interested teams will be getting their finances ready in preparation of courting Pujols.

ESPN and the MLB Network and FoxSports.com will keep the story pumping nationally. ESPN already is hyperventilating.

When the Cardinals visit Wrigley Field, Chicago reporters will ask Pujols and teammates about the possibility of him playing for the Cubs. When the Cardinals go to New York, all of the talk (and questions) will dwell on Pujols becoming a Met. When the Cardinals head west to Los Angeles, they'll hear a lot of babble about Pujols and the Dodgers, Pujols and the Angels.

All of this is good for business for Lozano and Pujols. Don't forget that.

This isn't about distractions; it's about commanding the almighty dollar.

This isn't about being the next Musial; it's about making the most amount of money.

Again, Pujols deserves it. By imposing this deadline, he's playing hardball in the negotiations. Hardball, sure. But there's no reason to be so hardheaded.