St. Louis signed Albert Pujols to a seven-year, $100M contract, which includes a $5M buyout on a $16M option for 2011. Pujols reportedly is scheduled to earn a salary of $7M in 2004, $11M in 2005, $14M in 2006, $15M in 2007, $16M in 2008, $16M in 2009, and $16M in 2010. The Cardinals will defer $3M of his salary in each of the final four seasons before the option year with $1.2M payments scheduled each season from 2020-2029. If the option is picked up, St. Louis can defer $3M from that as well, increasing the scheduled payments to $1.5M. Prior to completing this trade, the two sides were scheduled for an arbitration hearing with Pujols formally requesting $10.5M and St. Louis offering $7M.

Pujols possesses full no-trade rights through the first three seasons of the contract. In the remaining years of the deal, he must specify 10 teams to which he's willing to be traded.