For several uncertain days in December, Gaby Sanchez wasn’t sure where he’d be come the start of spring training in February. As Sanchez sat at his home in Miami — waiting and wondering — the Marlins were in Dallas waving millions at Albert Pujols.

Sign Pujols and the Marlins would have about as much need for Sanchez, their incumbent first baseman, as they would one additional color for their chromatic new uniforms. Lose out on Pujols and the Marlins would return their attention to Sanchez.

“The way the Marlins were going after him, there was always that thought, ‘Well, if they get him, where am I going to go? Let’s see what team I’m going to get traded to,’ ” Sanchez said. “But there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t change anything.”

As it turned out, in what was a wild winter of change for the Marlins, nothing changed for Sanchez. Come Monday, Sanchez will throw his glove in the trunk of his car, head to Jupiter and prepare to open spring camp with the Marlins.

Same as always. The Angels out-millioned the Marlins for Pujols, and Sanchez kept his job.

Thank you, albert

“When he signed with the Angels, I said ‘Thank you,’ ” Sanchez said.

When Pujols picked California over Florida, it meant that Sanchez wouldn’t have to go house-hunting in some new city for the first time in his life. Nobody on the newly christened Miami Marlins is more Miami than the 28-year-old first baseman.

Sanchez was born in Miami, raised in Miami, played collegiately at the University of Miami and has spent his entire professional career with the Marlins, who drafted him in 2005. Commute time for Sanchez to the team’s modern new ballpark in Little Havana is 15 minutes.

“Of course I wanted to stay in Miami,” Sanchez said. “I love Miami. This is where I’ve always played. But, in the end, it is a business.”

The “business” almost expelled Sanchez — the Marlins’ only All-Star last year — like some discard. Had the Marlins landed Pujols, Sanchez would have become instant trade bait.

But not only isn’t Sanchez insulted by that prospect, he understands it.

“You’re talking about one of the best players in baseball, and I’m OK with that,” Sanchez said of Pujols. “I’m OK with getting pushed aside and having him to thank for it. If I was the [general manager] of the Marlins, I would have done the same thing. I would have gone after Pujols, also.”

And it’s not because Sanchez is some schlep.

In his two full seasons in the majors, Sanchez has held his own at an extremely competitive position in the National League, where Pujols, Prince Fielder, Joey Votto and Ryan Howard have reigned.

Although his numbers don’t jump off the page compared with his NL contemporaries, he has been pleasantly consistent for the Marlins from one year to the next. He hit 19 homers and scored 72 runs in 572 at-bats in 2010. He put up precisely those same numbers last season.

Top of the list

And with Pujols and Fielder moving to the American League and Howard trying to make his way back from an Achilles’ injury, Sanchez likely will ascend in the hierarchy of NL first basemen.

It’s why the Marlins are hardly upset about losing out on Pujols.

“We’re very happy with Gaby,” said Larry Beinfest, the Marlins’ president of baseball operations. “He’s a good player, good hitter, All-Star and local. I don’t think of him as a fallback. I don’t think that’s fair. He’s an All-Star.”

It would be easy to see where Sanchez might use the courtship of Pujols as incentive to show the Marlins they were wrong in overlooking him. But the ever-serious Sanchez said that’s not how he thinks.

“There’s nothing for me to be mad about,” he said. “There’s nothing for me to get upset about. I don’t take that as a hit. I don’t take having a guy like Albert Pujols getting talked about coming to first base and me being traded [as a knock]. He’s proven what he can do for 10 straight years. I’ve been here for two.”

Sanchez is just glad that episode is in the past and he can concentrate on baseball.

“I never had to look for a house somewhere else,” Sanchez said.

“I never had to look for an apartment. Luckily, we don’t have to worry about that now.”