The Giants and Carlos Correa agreed to terms last week on a 13-year, $350MM framework for a deal. That structure was pending a physical and Correa had yet to officially sign the contract. The club was going to introduce him today but the scheduled news conference was postponed due to a medical concern, reports Ronald Blum of the Associated Press. earlier today, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the postponement was related to the fact that the club was “awaiting test results.” At this point, it isn’t known what exactly is causing the holdup, with Blum’s report simply stating that “a medical issue was flagged.”
Beyond that information, anything else is speculation at this point. It isn’t publicly known what the issue is or how serious it is. It’s also not known if the Giants simply want to conduct further tests or have firm evidence of something that will lead to the deal being called off or restructured. However, the fact that they are at least delaying the official stamp is a situation that will be worth monitoring.
Over the past eight seasons, Correa has been one of the best shortstops in baseball but one knock against him has been durability. He has gone to the injured list with various issues in his career, including a torn ligament in his thumb, lower back soreness and a fractured rib. However, he has largely moved past his “injury-prone” label in recent years. He played 58 games in the shortened 60-game season in 2020, followed by 148 contests in 2021. This most recent season, he went on the IL for a finger contusion and went to the COVID-IL once but still got into 136 games on the year, staying healthy for the entirety of the second half of the season. Again, it’s worth repeating that we don’t know what the current issue is or the severity of it, but Slusser reports that is not a back problem.
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