In a shocking turn of events, Carlos Correa just might end up with the team that surprised the baseball world with his signing last offseason. As The Athletic‘s Ken Rosenthal reported Tuesday, Correa and the Minnesota Twins are in agreement on a six-year, $200 million contract, which can max out at $270 million with vesting options for four additional years. The deal is pending a physical, which is what scuttled Correa’s previous deals with the Giants and Mets.
Once medicals are finalized, & Twins are said to be comfortable w/ what they’ve already seen, the first $200m of Carlos Correa’s contract is guaranteed.
The final 4 years have vesting amounts at 575, 550, 525 & 502 ABs.
But even if it didn’t vest, the Twins have team options.— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) January 10, 2023
Some day we will look back on all this and ponder just how ridiculous it was.
Actually, that day is today. We don’t need perspective. This saga has been preposterous.
Over the course of 28 days, Carlos Correa agreed to a 13-year, $350 million contract with the Giants, a 12-year, $315 million contract with the Mets, and then, on Tuesday, to a six-year, $200 million contract with Minnesota. None of those contracts have been finalized, although the last one has the best chance of being consummated.
In case you were wondering: No, this is not how free agency normally goes. But a pair of flunked physicals — or, in the more charitable reading of Correa’s health, a pair of physicals that raised concerns for doctors from both the Giants and the Mets — led to him reuniting with Minnesota. The worry about Correa’s right ankle cost him seven years and $150 million — or, as our Grant Brisbee put itroughly the same sum Carlos Rodón received in free agency.
“Are you kidding me?” an executive asked when Minnesota re-emerged as the primary suitor on Monday night.
“That would be quite the turnaround,” one evaluator said.
“The world is very strange,” another executive mused.
Indeed.
The fallout figures to spread across the industry. The Giants look vindicated for letting Correa sign elsewhere — except the team still doesn’t have a star to build around. The Mets got bogged down in contractual haggling for long enough to allow Minnesota to swoop in. After using his wallet to swamp the competition for most of the winter, Mets owner Steve Cohen opted for restraint. It cost his franchise a player Cohen himself considered the final piece to a championship puzzle.
Now the Twins will employ that player, who enjoyed his one previous season in Minnesota. Correa will spend the rest of his career under significant scrutiny. So much has been said about the long-term future of his ankle, none of it by him. He will get a chance to answer with his play. This preposterous saga will only continue when he takes the field as a Twin — pending a physical, of course. — Andy McCullough
Minnesota is in the sweet spot for adding talent, where every additional win carries maximum value. FanGraphs recently projected the Twins at 81-81, which is borderline playoff contention. Correa re-signing will push their projection above 85 wins, and from there, any other additions would get them closer to the 90-win mark that typically signals contender status. In other words, the Twins should absolutely keep pushing, especially in what has generally been one of MLB’s weakest divisions and with three wild-card spots now available in the American League.
Arguments can perhaps be made against 70-win teams or 100-win teams adding big-time free agents, because the impact is muted. But for a .500-ish team like the Twins, it’s worth fighting for every win, and the full impact of bringing back Correa will be felt. But that also means there’s no reason to stop now, and if anything the Twins should be further incentivized to pursue more moves, both big and small.
Adding another win or two in the form of a setup-caliber reliever or a righty outfield bat can now realistically be seen as the difference between claiming a wild-card spot or missing the playoffs. And paying a premium to bring in a front-line starter via the trade market could now be the move needed to dethrone the Guardians in the AL Central, providing even more motivation. Now that they’re in the roster-building sweet spot, the Twins should be looking to squeeze every last win they can from this offseason. — Aaron Gleeman
At the start of the offseason, I assigned the Twins a five percent chance of re-signing Carlos Correa in my head.
It wasn’t that anyone should have questioned their desire to sign the two-time All-Star. On the contrary, the Twins were effusive in their praise of Correa and very public about their aspirations of making him a long-term piece of their plan. Their original bid of $285 million over 10 years was easily the biggest in franchise history and demonstrated their desire.
But the reality always seemed to be that a big-market club would swoop in and blow the Twins out of the water, which is exactly what San Francisco did on Dec. 14.
A week after everything looked like it was dead, the Twins got a glimmer of hope when Correa’s deal with the Giants evaporated. At that point, I figured the Twins at least had to be back in the mix. But before we had a chance to take stock, Correa was gone again, whisked away by New York.
Even though the Mets deal had flaws, it didn’t enter my mind that the Twins could be in play. Twins officials had tempered expectations and suspected everything was a cat-and-mouse game between Correa’s camp and the Mets. Surely, the Mets would eventually complete the deal, which left my expectations for a reunion at zero percent.
Still, the Twins remained involved. They stayed in contact and were simmering just in case this latest round failed. Right before the New Year, I thought they had about a two percent chance. Even as the Mets saga dragged on, the Twins’ internal expectations weren’t increasing. They kept talking, but feared they were being used, which kept my internal meter around two percent.
Everything changed on Monday night.
Suddenly, the Twins felt confident about their chances. The way they were talking, it seemed their chances had jumped to roughly 50 percent, which I still had difficulty grasping. How were the mid-market Twins going to land Correa after Steve Cohen made his feelings about the superstar so clear?
Even when I woke up Tuesday, you were always waiting for Cohen and the Mets to swoop in. It just seemed like what was going to happen.
And then it didn’t. — Dan Hayes
For an owner with so much money and a team with such high expectations, would the reward of Correa be worth the perceived long-term risk?
There’s a couple ways of looking at this from the Mets’ perspective.
On one hand, there’s disappointment. Correa is one of baseball’s best players. That should not be forgotten in all of this. The Mets are serious contenders to win the World Series this year, and Correa was the special player who enhanced their chances. Three weeks ago, Mets owner Steve Cohen went as far as saying his club needed Correa.
But on the other hand, the Mets’ concerns are understandable. They were not the only team to hit pause over the medicals. Unlike the Giants, the other organization that hesitated, the Mets had a terrific offseason to this point and have a handful of other stars. As constructed, they should still be able to compete for the World Series.
If the Mets signed Correa, they would have likely still made the numbers work for CBT purposes to stay on track in regard to their plan of sustainability. Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, players with the highest AAVs on the Mets, are on short-term deals. And it’s not like Correa would’ve prevented Cohen’s Mets from making a run at free agents in the future like Shohei Ohtani. The Mets payroll projects to be around $355 million, not including a sizable tax hit while going over the final penalty threshold.
The logical inference here is that it took a lot for Cohen to walk away from the Correa situation without being able to add the star to the lineup. In the context of wanting to improve their roster from last year, Cohen was right when he said the Mets needed Correa. Several faces have changed and somehow the team still looks awfully similar. That’s not inherently bad; the Mets last year won 101 games.
The Mets had a cumulative wRC+ of 102 at third base, right around average. Eduardo Escobar had a sizzling September in which he had a .982 OPS — the best month of his career — to boost that figure. Escobar finished with solid numbers: 20 home runs, 106 wRC+, .726 OPS. Escobar is projected to be the Mets’ starting third baseman in 2023 with talented prospect Brett Baty lingering as an option in the future. By no means is the Mets’ situation at third base bad; it’s just Correa would have been a much better option.
The Mets could have afforded the risk.
They also can afford not to take the risk — even if Cohen had a point in saying how much Correa was needed. — Will Sammon
From the information we have publicly, Carlos Correa should absolutely be a top free agent.
He has a better arm than any of the shortstops that just signed, and his defense has graded out extremely well at shortstop — he was top 10 among shortstops since 2019 at least. Last year was a step back, but with an arm like that, he can be an asset at third base for a while even when he leaves shortstop behind.
Correa has more patience at the plate than any of the other top shortstops that signed this offseason. Patience is important because a player’s ability to make contact on pitches outside the zone ages terribly. Correa is pretty good at swinging at more strikes than balls, and that bodes well for the future.
He also had better power than any of the shortstops that just signed. Barrel rate is more predictive of future power than any other stat, and Correa had the second-best barrel rate among shortstops last year. He’s into analytics and shapes his approach to produce these batted balls; doesn’t that sound like it will age well too? He’s on a short list of star hitters that don’t strike out that much and make powerful contact.
You’d absolutely give a guy like that a bunch of money.
Except there’s the stuff we don’t know. Maybe his ankle is made up of toothpicks and sawdust, but we just don’t know. We can see Correa’s public comments about the plate in his ankle, and we can read between the lines shaped by the descending value of the three offers he agreed to with the Giants, Mets, and Twins. We know something was up with the physical.
But in the short term at least, we’re just going to have to guess exactly why Carlos Correa lost anywhere between $80 and $150 million over the last month. What a wild ride it’s been for all of us. — Eno Sarris
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
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