Albert Pujols Rumors: Chicago Cubs Make An Offer?

The Chicago Cubs have been rumored to be one of the teams in on free agent first baseman Albert Pujols given their hole at the position and substantial payroll, but we now have conflicting reports on whether or not the team has made Pujols an official offer. Earlier on Tuesday, Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the Cubs did make an offer to Pujols this week, but MLB.com's Carrie Muskat spoke with a Cubs official that denied the report of an offer being made.

At the moment, it appears that Pujols has a nine-year offer on the table from St. Louis and a ten-year offer on the table from Miami. It's unclear exactly how much interest Chicago has in him, though. Jon Heyman of SI.com recently reported that the Cubs prefer Prince Fielder to Pujols, and aren't willing to give Pujols nine years on any contract offer. Length of the deal presumably isn't as important as the total guaranteed payout, but the guess is that the first baseman would obviously prefer to get more years rather than less.