Star shortstop Carlos Correa and the Minnesota Twins are finalizing a six-year, $200 million contract, pending a physical, after weeks of discussion to salvage a deal with the New York Mets broke down, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN.
The stunning turn caps a whirlwind month for Correa, who agreed to a 13-year, $350 million contract with the San Francisco Giants on Dec. 13. After the Giants raised concerns about Correa’s surgically repaired right leg, he pivoted quickly to the Mets, who offered him a 12-year, $315 million contract. The Mets flagged his physical as well, and efforts to amend the deal fell apart, leading Correa back to Minnesota, where he signed after a topsy-turvy offseason last year, too.
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1. Mefisto Posted: January 10, 2023 at 12:39 PM (#6112668)I would have hoped that Correa could just turn over the records from his other 2 physicals and let the Twins evaluate that during this negotiation time.
Is the next news going to come back next week that the Twins found an issue and put the deal on hold?
EDIT: Sorry Duke, just read your post after a refresh. Good points!
In any case, I have to believe that Twins broadcasts will devote significant airtime this year to Correa's ankle (if he makes it through this year without injuries, they'll probably let up in 2024).
I do wonder now, however, if Cohen was willing to drop that cash on Correa and DIDN'T, is there something else we can expect?
Also, don't the Twins now have all the leverage? "Well, we see this scrape here on your knee. Do you snore, BTW? $175M."
It’s logically consistent that Correa would take this deal over a longer, incentive based one for the Mets. Both require him to perform and bet on himself, but if he thinks he’s going to be healthy and productive over the next six years, then he’d probably think he can make more than 100 million additional for the rest of his career (age 34 on). Might not be unreasonable given how salaries are trending. And if he blows up tomorrow, which I still think is probably a potential outcome in all this, he got a big payday.
It is an open question if he would have been better off making 35 million annual the next two. As it stands, it’s basically like he signed a 4 year, 130 million extension to his prior Twins deal. If he’s healthy and productive through age 30, he likely beats that. But the injury cloud makes this all very tricky.
He will still be just turning 34 at the end of this deal so he might easily add 3/$75 or something at the end of this deal. Anyway, I'd be happy to be on the losing end of a 6/$200 M contract.
Well, he opted out of 2 years, $70 million. So he could have had that and then hit free agency again going into his age 30 season.
Now he's getting 6 years, $200 million so he's basically signing a 4-year, $130 million extension ($32.5M per year) on that original deal. So I agree, he didn't lose much with this gamble.
There are some reports that he walked away from a 10-year, $285 offer from the Twins before signing the Giants deal. If that's the case then he potentially lost $85 million in guaranteed money here, but he could still make that if he's healthy at the end of this contract.
EDIT: Coke to Walt who made some of the same points.
Interesting. Should I be upset? I'm not really even sure myself. I don't think I am?
I'm not really upset. Correa certainly would have improved the team but it was a lot to spend to move a guy off his primary position. If Cohen puts this money towards filling other needs (this year or in the future) then I'm not really bothered.
Right but presumably that 10/285 deal would have fallen apart after the physical too? I mean the only "gamble" was "agreeing to take a physical", which I doubt he had a real choice on...
I think the chances are are certainly non-zero he has no significant injury time from now until 40. But SOMETHING is bothering all these people.
but it was a lot to spend to move a guy off his primary position.
Yes.
Definitely. To me, the most surprising thing is how quickly Correa jumped from the Giants to the Mets (for less money).
It seemed like the Giants were willing to negotiate around the ankle risk, and having whiffed on Judge seemed to be under pressure to find a way to close, but Correa/Boras immediately turned around and got themselves a new deal. It seems quite likely that the Giants would have been willing to give Correa the deal he now appears to be getting from the Twins.
I'm not upset the Mets dropped out.
Right but presumably that 10/285 deal would have fallen apart after the physical too? I mean the only "gamble" was "agreeing to take a physical", which I doubt he had a real choice on...
Yeah, I'm assuming that the Twins would have been ok with the physical prior to the Giants and Mets both having issues, but you're right that we don't know whether that's the case.
A long letter? Lots of things to explain? ;-)
Now we can get both Ohtani AND Machado!
A long letter? Lots of things to explain? ;-)
Yeah, I don't think there's such a thing as a good long medical report.
Trevor Bauer meet the Mets.Meet the Mets.
So starting in 2028 any substantial injury can cost him the rest of the option years, not just the leg. And those twilight years are going to be easy to trade at that senior discount rate.
For example, grabbing the oft-injured Barry Larkin, at 34-35 he put up 11 WAR; granted at 36-37 he put up only 3 and he wouldn't have triggered the vesting options with just 276 PA (but 3.5 WAR!) at 33. And that was after producing a total of 30 WAR for 28-33. If the Twins got 30 WAR for $200 M then 4/$70 in annual options? That would probably work out to be one of the best FA deals of all time. Correa should have some chance at bigger money in those option years.
But SOMETHING is bothering all these people.
Don't we know (i.e. have a plausible solid rumor!) what's bothering them ... that docs agree that hte reconstructed ankle isn't a major short-term risk but that eventually arthritis will arrive? Who knows when, who knows how severe? Still it seems likely he'd be able to trot out to 1B/DH with enough cortisone if the bat is still producing OK but that's not remotely a $30 M player ... and if that happens at 31 rather than 35, a 12-year deal doesn't look so good. Buckner managed to play another 15 years after destroying his ankle. (I had also thought McRae's injury was an ankle but apparently he had a multiple fracture in his leg.)
Meh, your post was better. Half a Coke at most, save it up until we go double or nothing.
my guess is that Boras knew this was an issue the whole time and told his client there was a problem. my further guess is that he discussed with his client a strategy whereby they'd enter into these agreements subject to physicals, leak the deals widely to the media, and hope that the PR to preserve the deal would pressure the team to either keep the deal as is (ideally, but unlikely) or to at least renegotiate at a number above where the deal would've landed if the medical issue had been fully disclosed in advance. I think the strategy wasn't a bad idea, but I don't think it worked. But i don't think Correa lost out, because he ended up getting the deal he would've gotten in the first place with full transparency.
Just my mildly informed speculation.
Edwin Jackson approves.
I wish I could lose like that.
And Correa didn't exactly come out badly.
Source
However, it also sounds like the Twins have a lot of control past the guaranteed six years. Dan Hayes on Twitter reports:
From what I’m reading, it sounds like all four of the options are team options/automatically kicked in by ABs, which is kinda nuts in the albeit unlikely event that Correa is still a premiere player by 2030-32.
I want to again say that none of us really know what the medical situation is. Everyone seems to want to assume that it’s for something long term, but I think it’s almost as possible that it’s something that could blow out at any moment. That would explain the Mets reluctance to even match the Twins six years, which it seems like Correa only got by sacrificing any control he had to make more after it expired. Basically, the Mets didn’t want to be on the hook for all 315 million if he got severely hurt in a year or two but were willing to risk half that.
If Correa is playing well, I'd imagine he'd push for an extension, tough to see him being happy hitting well and passing at 3B or playing 1B, hitting the 502 AB incentive, and locking himself into $10M.
If this is correct, its kinda weird. I know that 502 is a sacred number for plate appearances, but it isn't for AB. Why not just make it 500?
And if it's really linked to AB, wouldn't that discourage him from taking walks?
It is different, but it seems to make sense given the motivations of the parties here. Correa wanted to maximize the length/total value of the deal and seems to legitimately believe that his ankle will not be a long-term problem. If that's true, the playing time thresholds should not be a deal-breaker for him. The team's interest is straightforward- they want protection if his ankle becomes so problematic that he can't play regularly later in the deal. Correa probably gave up more than the team, but given how the winter played out for him, getting a deal that maxes out at $275m if he hits playing time he probably believes he will hit, still feels like a good outcome for him.
If he has over 575 PA at age 34 and is playing 3b he should be worth more than $25M but eh..
He’s not withholding anything. A physical is a standard part of the transaction. Do the Giants have to tell Boras if ownership is having financial problems, so don’t get your hopes up about the playoffs?
Which really seems ass backwards. Why not do the physical before you start negotiation?
You do one with an independent doctor and share the results upfront. The MLBPA and MLB could agree on a list of mutually acceptable doctors, and what tests should be run.
Like, switch it around the other way. Why not have the team submit their financial detail to the player before they start negotiation? It's relevant, and I hear that withholding relevant information in a negotiation is shady.
The MLBPA and MLB are in a very close relationship. The team has a right to the medical information. They can certainly figure out a way to safeguard it.
Like, switch it around the other way. Why not have the team submit their financial detail to the player before they start negotiation? It's relevant, and I hear that withholding relevant information in a negotiation is shady.
Player contracts are guaranteed by MLB. The player is equally likely to get paid regardless of the team he signs with. If that wasn't true, then I agree the player would have the right to team financials to see if they were a good risk for a 12 year commitment.
The team that has offered a player a contract that has been accepted has a right to that information. The other teams do not.
This just doesn't seem plausible to me. This is just offering him the discounted AAV of a long-term, "backloaded" deal but allowing the team to opt out halfway through. If this is what the Mets offered, I'm not surprised he turned it down -- the Mets needed to offer something more like the Twins 6/$200 with $100 M in options or similar. By "innings benchmarks" (in addition to PA benchmarks) I assume the Mets were requiring innings at SS/3B or at least innings in the field to trigger the options.
But yes, the Twins options are pretty lousy from Correa's perspective. The only way Correa "wins" here is to pull an Alomar and be heatlhy but unproductive from 33 on. (Alomar actually dove off the cliff between 33 and 34 but close enough.)
EDIT: To put that in perspective, Correa has hit 575 PA (or 500 PA for that matter) just 3 times in 7 full seasons.
And I'm saying that's a stupid system, as the Correa debacle shows.
What they should do is periodically reassess and bargain over the rules pertaining to conditions of employment and the market for baseball players. That is the only way to restore peace and end this long-running war between players and management about medical exams that has so captivated the baseball world for so long.
The Correa Adventure is an extreme outlier and doesn't show anyone anything about the system.
The credit reporting bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, etc.) have, in fact, compiled all of your data before you entered the car dealership. And the dealership does, in fact, get a copy of that report, with your consent, before offering you a loan.
A similar system, whereby a player gets one physical with a doctor from a list approved by the 30 teams, and then gives consent for a specific team to access the results of that exam when he enters into negotiations with them, would actually make a lot of sense.
In any case, it seems stupid for teams to announce deals before physicals are completed. Maybe the Correa example may cause teams and players to rethink that strategy going forward.
Actually, I find the fact that so few deals get nixed by physicals over the years more troubling than anything that has happened with Correa this offseason. They typically seem like rubber stamp affairs, which isn't really all that healthy considering the size and length of the investments involved and how often seasons are scuttled by injury. So either they are a joke, with doctors tacitly instructed not to find anything, or medical science is pretty bad at risk analysis even at the highest levels. Neither one of those possibilities is great (and both make one imagine that Correa's ankle must look like ground beef on an MRI).
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