Carlos Correa to Mets - 12 Years, $315 Million

[wallus]

I can't wait until the press conference when he says he wanted to stay with the Twins the whole time.

[StearnsFTW]

On 12/24/2022 at 11:50 AM, Brock Beauchamp said:

No matter what happens, this year's owners dinner will feature several toasts to Carlos Correa. The amount of news he has driven to the site is breath-taking. Like maybe 500,000 page views just through this series of debacles.

And all the while, my interest in signing him has dropped to the point I'm not sure I even care anymore. I dislike the Twins' offseason procedures so much that I find myself paying a lot more interest in the Brewers and what this team will look like in 2023.

Your wish came true!

 

This whole thing has been ridiculous.

 

 

 

[StearnsFTW]

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[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, StearnsFTW said:

Your wish came true!

This whole thing has been ridiculous.

So ridiculous. I've devoted so much time and energy to this over the past couple of months. Last night I was up until 1am because we knew a deal was close and I had to talk to writers, create graphics, and set the plan for when it happened.

Then it happened this morning while I was in a fugue state. I went into overdrive for like three hours and I'm just exhausted. I'm gonna go read a book about dragons or something; I can't do any more baseball.

[wibadgers23]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

So ridiculous. I've devoted so much time and energy to this over the past couple of months. Last night I was up until 1am because we knew a deal was close and I had to talk to writers, create graphics, and set the plan for when it happened.

Then it happened this morning while I was in a fugue state. I went into overdrive for like three hours and I'm just exhausted. I'm gonna go read a book about dragons or something; I can't do any more baseball.

You obviously don’t have to get into specifics, but you must have sources within the Twins organization? 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just now, wibadgers23 said:

You obviously don’t have to get into specifics, but you must have sources within the Twins organization? 

Yeah, we've been bouncing between sources for the Twins, Mets, and Boras Corp for weeks now. And it was just as tumultuous from the inside as it appeared from the outside. There were prolonged stretches of time where it appeared no one had a clue what the hell was going to happen. Literally reports of "the Mets got him" followed by "the Twins are close" within hours of one another... and that was like 4-5 days ago.

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Mets final reported offer was 6/$157.5 with required physicals every offseason that would trigger an opt out of the contract for the Mets if he failed. Twins went 6/$200. That’s a huge disconnect between those two franchises. 

I think the Mets were intentionally being unreasonable to distance themselves from Cohen blowing his horn over basically having a deal finalized at 11/$315m. I think a lot of what the Mets did was cautious backpedaling and the form they employed was a flat-out unreasonable demand, the likes of which we've never seen in baseball.

Think about it from Correa's perspective: you think you have a really great deal with the Mets and then they start backpedaling. Their final offer after pretty much betraying your trust is that you have to trust their doctor to clear you every single year or you don't get paid.

That's not a real attempt to salvage the Correa situation. The Mets knew it. Correa knew it.

People were claiming all along Boras was using the Twins to leverage the Mets to a higher number. Now that the dust has settled, I think it's the other way around. He was using the Mets to leverage the Twins, a place Correa is obviously comfortable playing, trusts their front office, and likes his teammates.

I suspect quite a bit of bad blood arose between Correa and Cohen over the past few weeks.

[monty57]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

 

I suspect quite a bit of bad blood arose between Correa and Cohen over the past few weeks.

I’m sure Boras won’t delete Cohen’s contact information over this. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

37 minutes ago, monty57 said:

I’m sure Boras won’t delete Cohen’s contact information over this. 

Which is why I said "Correa" and not "Boras".

As usual, Scott Boras got the best money possible for his client and did it by leveraging teams against one another. That's his job and he does it amazingly well.

If there's another client that has tried Boras' ability to extract money from teams more than Carlos Correa over the past two months, I'd love to hear that story.

Boras took a bad situation that somehow kept getting worse and turned it into $200m guaranteed money,

He's real good at his job.

[CheezWizHed]

On an unrelated note, I've hired Boras to be my agent as a forum moderator... 

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

On an unrelated note, I've hired Boras to be my agent as a forum moderator... 

Oh, I see the dugout mug wasn't enough.

Do we need three dugout mugs plus back massages guaranteed for three years?

All of this is pending a physical, mind you. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

9 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Which is why I said "Correa" and not "Boras".

As usual, Scott Boras got the best money possible for his client and did it by leveraging teams against one another. That's his job and he does it amazingly well.

If there's another client that has tried Boras' ability to extract money from teams more than Carlos Correa over the past two months, I'd love to hear that story.

Boras took a bad situation that somehow kept getting worse and turned it into $200m guaranteed money,

He's real good at his job.

I think you give him too much credit, because Correa and Boras created the bad situation on their own.  He had his client opt out of 2 more years of a higher AAV contract than what the deal he just inked pays him from the same team so he could try and land a longterm mega-deal while knowing that his questionable medical history was going to be a concern.  It's accurate that the decision to opt out gave Correa another ~$125M guaranteed over the 2025-2028 seasons, but they lost out on him receiving another ~100M guaranteed tacked onto that for 4-5 years beyond 2028 from both the Giants and Mets once they were able to get a better idea of what issues Correa may have to deal with longterm.  If medicals truly aren't of concern in Correa/Boras' camp, the right move would've been to play under the old Twins contract for two more seasons at $35M per and then ink a 6-7 year deal two offseasons from now in the $200-$225M range.

As it stands, the only way Boras did his client a good service by dragging him through this process is if Correa is about to turn into a pumpkin due to his medicals, in which case the Twins should be looking at themselves asking why they just shelled out $200M more guaranteed to a guy in need of the biggest golden parachute he could find knowing he isn't going to age well.

[MrTPlush]

11 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

I think you give him too much credit, because Correa and Boras created the bad situation on their own.  He had his client opt out of 2 more years of a higher AAV contract than what the deal he just inked pays him from the same team so he could try and land a longterm mega-deal while knowing that his questionable medical history was going to be a concern.  It's accurate that the decision to opt out gave Correa another ~$125M guaranteed over the 2025-2028 seasons, but they lost out on him receiving another ~100M guaranteed tacked onto that for 4-5 years beyond 2028 from both the Giants and Mets once they were able to get a better idea of what issues Correa may have to deal with longterm.  If medicals truly aren't of concern in Correa/Boras' camp, the right move would've been to play under the old Twins contract for two more seasons at $35M per and then ink a 6-7 year deal two offseasons from now in the $200-$225M range.

As it stands, the only way Boras did his client a good service by dragging him through this process is if Correa is about to turn into a pumpkin due to his medicals, in which case the Twins should be looking at themselves asking why they just shelled out $200M more guaranteed to a guy in need of the biggest golden parachute he could find knowing he isn't going to age well.

I think you actually have this backwards. Opting out now looks like a brilliant decision and the worst thing to have done would have been to stay in the previous contract. The injury concern isn't for the next two years, it is for 5 years from now. He could be healthy the next two years and that really wouldn't make his medicals long term look any better. He has been healthy the last three years straight (including the benefit of a short 2020 season). Being healthy clearly didn't prove anything. He has nothing he can prove the next two years. The only thing he could do is decline or have injury issues and really not get any kind of long-term deal.

[Brock Beauchamp]

22 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

I think you give him too much credit, because Correa and Boras created the bad situation on their own.  He had his client opt out of 2 more years of a higher AAV contract than what the deal he just inked pays him from the same team so he could try and land a longterm mega-deal while knowing that his questionable medical history was going to be a concern.  It's accurate that the decision to opt out gave Correa another ~$125M guaranteed over the 2025-2028 seasons, but they lost out on him receiving another ~100M guaranteed tacked onto that for 4-5 years beyond 2028 from both the Giants and Mets once they were able to get a better idea of what issues Correa may have to deal with longterm.  If medicals truly aren't of concern in Correa/Boras' camp, the right move would've been to play under the old Twins contract for two more seasons at $35M per and then ink a 6-7 year deal two offseasons from now in the $200-$225M range.

As it stands, the only way Boras did his client a good service by dragging him through this process is if Correa is about to turn into a pumpkin due to his medicals, in which case the Twins should be looking at themselves asking why they just shelled out $200M more guaranteed to a guy in need of the biggest golden parachute he could find knowing he isn't going to age well.

Correa is going to make slightly more in 2023 and 2024 than the contract he opted out of after the season, $36m compared to $35.1m. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

8 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

I think you actually have this backwards. Opting out now looks like a brilliant decision and the worst thing to have done would have been to stay in the previous contract. The injury concern isn't for the next two years, it is for 5 years from now. He could be healthy the next two years and that really wouldn't make his medicals long term look any better. He has been healthy the last three years straight (including the benefit of a short 2020 season). Being healthy clearly didn't prove anything. He has nothing he can prove the next two years. The only thing he could do is decline or have injury issues and really not get any kind of long-term deal.

That's not my point, actually - all we've heard from Boras is how medicals aren't a concern for Correa.  Calling it a brilliant decision to opt out means they are a concern, which makes Boras a liar.  I'm not going to praise an agent for setting up a bidding war on a client that's soon to be damaged goods based on lying or at best misleading about his medical history.

What this 6 yr deal and offseason for Correa do is eliminate the chance of him earning a large amount of money on a longterm guaranteed contract into his late 30s.  If longterm health wasn't of concern to Boras/Correa, that's a costly error in judgement for a premium baseball player that should be able to naturally transition to 3B or DH as he ages.  If the goal of getting Correa as much money as possible guaranteed before he breaks down at all costs was the goal this offseason no matter the tactics, then sure Boras did a good job - IMO the tactics are borderline nefarious.

[Fear The Chorizo]

9 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Correa is going to make slightly more in 2023 and 2024 than the contract he opted out of after the season, $36m compared to $35.1m. 

And if health weren't an honest concern, he could have signed a 6-8 year extension in two more offseasons - now he'll only be 1/3 or the way through a deal that will likely pay him less in AAV over the last 4 seasons compared what he'd ink as a free agent heading into 2025.

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

And if health weren't an honest concern, he could have signed a 6-8 year extension in two more offseasons - now he'll only be 1/3 or the way through a deal that will likely pay him less in AAV over the last 4 seasons compared what he'd ink as a free agent heading into 2025.

That’s a big gamble, though. He’d be going into his age 31 season under market conditions none of us can predict, never mind the huge health questions inherent in any player, much less Correa. 

[MrTPlush]

16 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

That's not my point, actually - all we've heard from Boras is how medicals aren't a concern for Correa.  Calling it a brilliant decision to opt out means they are a concern, which makes Boras a liar.  I'm not going to praise an agent for setting up a bidding war on a client that's soon to be damaged goods based on lying or at best misleading about his medical history.

What this 6 yr deal and offseason for Correa do is eliminate the chance of him earning a large amount of money on a longterm guaranteed contract into his late 30s.  If longterm health wasn't of concern to Boras/Correa, that's a costly error in judgement for a premium baseball player that should be able to naturally transition to 3B or DH as he ages.  If the goal of getting Correa as much money as possible guaranteed before he breaks down at all costs was the goal this offseason no matter the tactics, then sure Boras did a good job - IMO the tactics are borderline nefarious.

They are a concern to some teams, sure. I don't know that Boras is lying or swindling the Twins. The teams see his injury history and medicals...past that it is on them to make a judgement on it. Unless he is providing false medical data, it is simply his opinion that it isn't a concern.

It may lower his chance for another long-term deal, but not entirely. Justin Turner got a pretty large contract when he was 34, I believe. If he stays good it may cost him money, but not as much as you would think. You can still get a nice multi year deal in your 30s. Instead of having the next 10+ years of salary based on 2022 salary standards, another contract will get based on salaries over half a decade from now. Compare salaries 6 years ago...pretty wild. It is exactly how the Braun contract extension did end up a big disaster. By the time the 5 year contract ever started salaries boomed. Then by the last few years of that extension $20mil was hardly a large salary and you didn't need to be MVP level to command it. 

He may never get a contract to take him to 40 years old....but after this offseason, I don't think any team would have done it anyway. I doubt in 2 years a team would have forgotten all this, see his medicals, and hand him a decade contract. It is fair to wonder if the Mets getting concerned had a domino effect to the other teams. Had he agreed with the Giants/Twins first those teams might not have batted an eye at anything.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

That’s a big gamble, though. He’d be going into his age 31 season under market conditions none of us can predict, never mind the huge health questions inherent in any player, much less Correa. 

So is opting out after his age 28 season and leaving ~$75M guaranteed through age 30 to try and land a 10 yr+ contract with his medicals.  And let's not kid ourselves, baseball's market conditions aren't going to be going anywhere but up in terms of AAV contracts two offseasons from now.  If Correa has two healthy and productive seasons through 2024 and became a free agent under his old contract, he'd be signing a 6-7 year contract then for equal or greater AAV than what he just inked with the Twins that pays him until he's pushing 39, not 35.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

So is opting out after his age 28 season and leaving ~$75M guaranteed through age 30 to try and land a 10 yr+ contract with his medicals.  And let's not kid ourselves, baseball's market conditions aren't going to be going anywhere but up in terms of AAV contracts two offseasons from now.  If Correa has two healthy and productive seasons through 2024 and became a free agent under his old contract, he'd be signing a 6-7 year contract then for equal or greater AAV than what he just inked with the Twins that pays him until he's pushing 39, not 35.

I mean, maybe. It's a definite possibility but Correa also made it pretty apparent he wanted to go one place for a very long time. He didn't try to negotiate any opt-outs from day one from the rumors I've heard, he wanted guaranteed years with a no-trade clause. There are so many variables that go into these decisions, let's not ignore the actual desires of the player and the type of deal they're looking to sign in the first place.

[nate82]

Will this make Lewis available in a trade?  Maybe someone to watch for a Burnes or Woodruff trade if the Brewers are out of the playoff discussion by the deadline.

[CheezWizHed]

13 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Oh, I see the dugout mug wasn't enough.

Do we need three dugout mugs plus back massages guaranteed for three years?

All of this is pending a physical, mind you. 

Blast... I'll never pass the physical.