NEWSLETTER
It’s a modest update today on The Carlos Correa Saga, but given how little we’re hearing right now about such an important story – a full week after his physical! – I’m interested in anything out there.
Jon Heyman today reports perhaps the best evidence of all that there’s still an expectation things will work out with the New York Mets: other interested teams are not being kept around as a back-up plan.
From Heyman: “Correa certainly doesn’t want to continue the drama by making a deal with a third team, though the incumbent Twins are a logical fallback. They offered about $285 million, and though they’d want a complete physical, too, they know his condition best. A few teams have been calling, but even a week after the Mets agreement, they are being told it’s only a Mets game — for now.”
That dangling “for now” does a lot of work, since, yes, it’s still possible the deal falls through. But if there were any kind of expectation or even strong fear this wasn’t going to happen with the Mets, you’ve gotta believe Scott Boras would be interested in hearing offers. Or at least interested in keeping them on the hook for a little longer just in case. Doesn’t sound like that’s happening, and whichever teams those are who’ve called, they are presumably not being given a sense that they should wait on any other moves. They should proceed as if Correa and the Mets will find a solution to their leg-induced, 12-year, $315 million problem.
Of course, there really aren’t that many significant free agents left anyway – the kinds of guys whose addition would, financially-speaking, suddenly make you unable to sign Carlos Correa if you were ever interested in that caliber of contract in the first place. So I’m not sure any of that really matters at this point. The teams that would still consider Correa at this point on a shorter-term, high-AAV deal probably won’t be meaningfully altered by, for example, wherever Trey Mancini signs.
I still tend to think Correa-Mets gets done, largely on the agreed-upon terms, because of Steve Cohen’s public statements about the deal. The main question is what kinds of, and how many, protections are built into the deal for the Mets. That could tell us just how worrying Correa’s leg really is. If the protections are substantial, and Boras/Correa never even tried to find a third team to create a back-up offer, then they must have accepted the fact that any physical by any team was going to generate the same level of concern.
In other words, I don’t think this is going to suddenly be a third team swooping in situation. But I do think the story remains very interesting, because the final form of the deal might largely reframe how we think about this offseason, and how teams – including the Cubs – proceeded with respect to Correa.
(It’s also very interesting because, after Correa is finalized, the Mets might wind up trading an infield bat or two, and the Cubs could come calling.)
