Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch, in response to a reader's question about why the Cardinals front office has been so quiet since the Holliday signing, says "Though the club won't confirm talks, negotiations with Pujols are also taking up time."

That's got to be encouraging for Cards fans, though I wonder if any real progress can be made. As his representatives said earlier this week, he's about to become a papa again, so you can't assume he's 100% engaged with anything apart from that.  At the same time Pujols is on record as saying that he won't negotiate during the season.  It's unclear if that means spring training too, but either way, there isn't exactly a ton of time to make anything happen right now.

Of course it's important to remember that Pujols is signed through 2011, not 2010. So while it would be nice to do a deal, it's not essential that an extension gets done right this moment.