Cardinal fans have been collectively curled up under their blankets, rocking back and forth and sucking their thumbs in worry over whether their beloved Albert Pujols will re-sign with the Cardinals and remain in St. Louis for the rest of his unique career. They envision the statues, the parades, the records broken on home turf, and a Cardinal cap on his head the day he enters Cooperstown. It’s all very lovely and sweet.

But I assure you that one Cardinal fan is NOT looking at Pujols like that - Bill DeWitt. And that’s important, because Mr. DeWitt holds the combination to the vault that will determine whether or not this deal gets done. DeWitt doesn’t look at baseball like a normal fan does; when he looks at a stadium full of fans, he sees spreadsheets and hears ringing cash registers. He would rip a Pujols jersey off of a five year old if he thought he could re-sell it to a crack whore and make a buck. I’m surprised there aren’t used player jockstraps being sold on the Cardinals’ official website (I’d probably buy Yadi’s. Possibly. If it was available, I mean).

DeWitt looks at the Cardinals as a business, an investment. He looks at Albert Pujols as the largest movable piece of that investment. So when Dan Lozano, Pujols’ agent, approaches DeWitt and demands an Alex Rodriguez contract for his client, DeWitt leans back in his high-back leather executive chair, squints his beady little eyes, and sees performance-rated dollars rather than sentimentality. DeWitt, worth somewhere in the $700 million dollar range, makes million dollar deals while washing his ass in the morning – this negotiation process doesn’t scare him at all.

And when DeWitt looks at Pujols, he sees this:

Pujols has declined noticeably in every offensive category. He’s also 32 years old.

When Lozano reportedly asked for A-Rod money, he was basically asking DeWitt to pay Pujols mostly based on past performance. DeWitt certainly received the best deal in baseball history when he nabbed a young, blossoming Pujols for eight years at an average annual value (AAV) of $13.9 million. He got the best years of any player in history at a ridiculously-steep discount.

But that’s what DeWitt is good at doing – making great deals in order to turn a profit. I didn’t hear too many people whining when DeWitt bought the team for only $150 million and then sold the parking garages the next day for $90 million (in other words, he bought the St. Louis Cardinals for $60 million). To DeWitt, Pujols is merely another parking garage, albeit one that can generate vastly larger sums of money.

However, unlike a garage, Pujols cannot be rebuilt. As the chart shows, Pujols is not trending upward in output. His legs are a constant source of worry. So is his expanding waistline. Pujols is no longer the feared hitter he once was, either – in 2011, pitchers threw a first-pitch strike to Pujols 52.8% of the time, the highest mark he’s had in eight years. We only saw Ron Washington walk Pujols in the World Series so many times because TLR kept putting a dead-cold Matt Holliday behind him in the lineup (LaGenius!). Face it: Pujols is not going to be getting A-Rod money from DeWitt.

You see, DeWitt is looking at what A-Rod money bought the Yankees. A-Rod received that enormous contract (AAV of $27.5 million) after a season in which he hit 54 home runs, drove in 156 RBI’s, and hit .314. He was also 31 years old at the time. Prior to that, A-Rod had hit over 50 homers twice (Pujols has never done that), and also had seasons of 47 and 48 home runs. In other words, giving A-Rod $27.5 million a year seemed (somewhat) justified when compared to the output of most hitters in baseball.

But since the contract, A-Rod has started to struggle. Injuries have taken a toll on him; his highest number of games played since the signing is 138 in 2008. He only played in 99 games last year, hitting just 16 homers and batting just .276. He made $32 million to do it, too.

Cardinal fans need to start looking at Pujols the way DeWitt does. How much will fans enjoy seeing a gimpy, 35 year-old Pujols earning $25 million a year for 20 home runs while grounding into 386 double plays? What will the team look like then, with one declining star leeching one-fifth of the team’s payroll?

DeWitt isn’t about to pay Pujols on past performance. Instead, he reasonably wants to pay Pujols fair market value for what he can produce in the future. If Pujols thinks he’s worth more than $23 million a year going forward (and I believe he does), then St. Louis will need to get comfortable with the idea of having Allen Craig at first base next year. DeWitt isn’t swayed by public outcries or sentimentality, and he surely isn’t going to foot the bill out of his own pocket. People need to adjust their perception of this negotiation process.

Baseball is both a game and a business. For Pujols and DeWitt, I doubt if they’re playing the same game in the same ballpark. Meanwhile, the fans stand outside at the gates looking in, futily hoping for a winner.