Carlos Correa and the Mets (yes, that's correct) agree on a 12-year, $315m deal
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Yeah, I’m going to love watching this from afar. The Mets could be a mess in a few years but, for now, they have a strong rotation, a fun lineup, and the #1 prospect in baseball playing catcher. Life is good for Mets fans. This is a perfect situation for Senga. He wasn’t the biggest splash so there won’t be any oversized Dice-K pressure on him.
This is what I’ve been thinking since this broke.
View: https://twitter.com/mike_petriello/status/1605566955494088704?s=46&t=k7Sle72fSB2VW5InYmWDGA
View: https://twitter.com/mike_petriello/status/1605566955494088704?s=46&t=k7Sle72fSB2VW5InYmWDGA
Thing is, has there ever been a "mess" that wasn't ultimately solvable? People have been predicting doom-and-gloom for various franchises due to contracts for the past 30 years. I'm not recalling a single instance where a franchise was 5+ years into a "regret" era (that was due solely to said contracts). A couple years, sure. But teams find a way to mitigate the damage after a while.
I don't follow them super closely either, but it's not so different from what he did in BOS. Ownership brings in DD to try to go for a quick title, he is very good at adding MLB assets but not so concerned with the long-term health of the organization, and when he leaves, it's not so easy to get back on track. The main example in DET is that he signed Miggy Cabrera to a 10/292 deal in 2014, he put up two more very good seasons and has been terrible since.
I hear ya, but I have a hard time believing that a bad deal for $29M/year is largely why they've been terrible for 6 years running. I get that DD may have stip mined the farm system, but that's different that what I was suggesting.
*edit* Just looked it up and Detroit was 18th in total payroll in 2022. Wayyyy under the cap. So seems like they could spend money now to get better if they choose to.
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I mean, if you're looking for a cautionary tale along the lines of what Cohen is doing specifically, no one in baseball history has really tried this before. The Yankees used to outspend everyone, but there were no penalties back then, and they might have dug themselves into a hole if Steinbrenner hadn't been suspended from the game for a few years, as he wanted to trade every prospect for immediate help.
Did he actually fail a physical? Sounds more like Giants saw something, tried to renegotiate, doctors disagreed.
I mean the Twins reportedly offered him a near $300M deal and they just had him for a year. Presumably they were operating on the same if not more info than the Giants.
That's fair. I just find the finger-wagging about "regret" a bit overheated. I mean, maybe. But I tend to believe there are always ways to endure some short term pain and extricate a team from the worst of contracts.
Thank you. The Bonilla jokes are dumb. Paying deferred money isn't a bad thing. The deal may have been bad but not because they deferred a chunk of money for years.
Also doesn't the fact that they're paying him as a 3B when some of his value comes from being a good SS make this even dumber? This is like signing ARod to play 3B instead of SS, except in this case the incumbent SS is actually the better option.
Right. Maybe something like "if you go on the DL for [insert particular condition] for [x number of days] , [this] will be the consequence.
I think I’d rather be the Braves than the Mets long term. Atlanta has so much young talent they got to sign team friendly deals.
Also, wasn’t Miggy’s second extension basically rammed through by Illitch based on pure sentimentality? That one looked bunkers on Day 1, and you can’t really fault the GM for that.
View: https://twitter.com/HowieRose/status/1605578414454235136
Howie Rose (mets PBP radio) wins the day
Detroit has not helped themselves post-DD. For example, when they recently splurged in free agency, they got a deteriorating Javy Baez and Eduardo Rodriguez, who developed a personal issue. I do think DD left that team in rough shape, but some of their recent terribleness was self-created/bad luck. There's a reason they have a new President of Baseball Ops.
I understand the sentiment, but the "team-friendly" part only matters if the Mets are hamstrung if some of the 9-figure contracts don't work. It doesn't appear Cohen has hams to string (or fucks to give) in that respect.
Machado got 10/$300M with an opt-out after his age 30 season.
Correa got 12/$315M
Machado age 20 to 27: 38.5 bWAR (122 OPS+)
Correa age 20 to 27: 39.5 bWAR (129 OPS+)
Correa is an elite defensive SS with a first class arm. Maybe he won't be Machado good at 3B but he should still be very good.
I don't doubt that he'll be a good defensive 3B. I'm saying that they're paying him as if he's a SS to play a position lower on the defensive spectrum and he's wasting part of his value by playing a lesser position. I don't think the comparison to Machado is all that important. I'm comparing him to Turner and Bogaerts.
I think it's legitimately hilarious that there are multiple teams with multiple All-Star shortstops and the Red Sox have none.
Thanks for this info. What Cohen is doing may be unprecedented, so there could be a level of future harm that we've never seen before. But it's not like 8+ year deals are a totally new phenomena. And while some of those have turned sour, I think the "this will hamper them for years" takes rarely turn out to be true. We'll see.
I agree. The Braves still look the better team and it wouldn't not surprise me if the Mets had a sell off at the All-Star break in 2023 or 2024
You're assuming the Twins made that offer with a real expectation he might accept it. I don't share that view. It was window dressing to sell the fans.
Yeah, if anything they’re a cautionary tale that the “burn it down” rebuilds don’t always go according to plan. Building around Torkelson, Greene, and the Mize-Manning-Skubal trio was defensible - hardly unheard of - and it even made sense for 2022 to be the “pivot” year since they looked good in the second half of ‘21. But last year at least, none of it worked.
How do player contracts that are subject to a physical work?
Is it like a home inspection where the buyer basically has an out no matter how non-material? Or is it required that it actually must be something material?
Or is there nothing even signed before the physical? Does the team just get a look before they actually sign something?
I guess this is both a legal question (what do the contracts allow) and a practical one. I don't think any team wants to be perceived as doing a player dirty. In this case, the Giants made a decision that cost the player more than most of us will come close to making in a lifetime. I assume if you do that even if you legally can, you don't risk your relationship with Boras and every other player out there over nothing.
I know that social media makes it impossible, but I sort of wonder why physicals don't quietly happen before the deals are announced. Maybe part of it is that the player wants the deal out there precisely to put pressure on the team not to screw the player over minor stuff.
Is it like a home inspection where the buyer basically has an out no matter how non-material? Or is it required that it actually must be something material?
Or is there nothing even signed before the physical? Does the team just get a look before they actually sign something?
I guess this is both a legal question (what do the contracts allow) and a practical one. I don't think any team wants to be perceived as doing a player dirty. In this case, the Giants made a decision that cost the player more than most of us will come close to making in a lifetime. I assume if you do that even if you legally can, you don't risk your relationship with Boras and every other player out there over nothing.
I know that social media makes it impossible, but I sort of wonder why physicals don't quietly happen before the deals are announced. Maybe part of it is that the player wants the deal out there precisely to put pressure on the team not to screw the player over minor stuff.
Nothing is signed until after the physical. The agreement up until that point is a verbal commitment pending the results of the physical.
Yes, Detroit gave out a series of bad contracts because Ilitch was chasing (unsuccessfully) one last championship before he died. They also gave an ill-advised extension to a 36-year-old Victor Martinez. It didn't matter who the GM was, those deals were brokered from ownership. The Tigers extended struggles (and the shortcomings of their GMs) were their inability to replenish the MLB roster with anything of value from the minors for several years. Their payroll really never sent them into the abyss. Now it's as much bad luck as anything with a plethora of young pitching injuries and "can't miss" prospects missing.
These physicals often lead to a lot of discussion behind closed doors as they are almost never a binary red light/green light or pass/fail situation. All of these guys have some previous injuries or chronic issues that can pop up on imaging studies, and truthfully they are often of uncertain importance.
The team medical staff (primary the head orthopedic surgeon, often with input from musculoskeletal radiologist) is then asked to give their opinion about what all of the imaging means. How likely will this knee/hip arthritis, ugly looking back, etc lead to issues during the contract?
The ultimate opinion is not just medical knowledge and experience, but also somewhat dependent on the personality of the team doctor (some are more cavalier, others more cautious by nature). Additionally, in the end they can still say "I'm concerned there's a greater than 50% chance condition X will be a major problem within 5 years" and Owner A can say to call off the deal while owner B could be fine with it.
All of this is to say there is a lot of gray area here, though it will be fascinating to see how Correa does medically over the course of this contract.
The team medical staff (primary the head orthopedic surgeon, often with input from musculoskeletal radiologist) is then asked to give their opinion about what all of the imaging means. How likely will this knee/hip arthritis, ugly looking back, etc lead to issues during the contract?
The ultimate opinion is not just medical knowledge and experience, but also somewhat dependent on the personality of the team doctor (some are more cavalier, others more cautious by nature). Additionally, in the end they can still say "I'm concerned there's a greater than 50% chance condition X will be a major problem within 5 years" and Owner A can say to call off the deal while owner B could be fine with it.
All of this is to say there is a lot of gray area here, though it will be fascinating to see how Correa does medically over the course of this contract.
I'm not sure that's right. DD was the GM of the Tigers for almost fifteen years, starting in December 2001 and ending in August of 2015. They set the AL record for most losses in a season in 2003, then turned things around and won the pennant in 2006, then retooled, then made the ALCS for three straight years from 2011-2013 and made the playoffs in 2014 before DD's complete gutting of the farm system finally did him in in 2015.
Just one year earlier, the Giants won the NL West with a 107-55 record, and the Red Sox made it to the ALCS and were two wins away from making it to the World Series, having dispatched the hated Yankees along the way.
What have you done for me lately, indeed.
Grant Brisbee, my favorite Giants writer, is not doing great.
https://theathletic.com/4024383/2022/12/21/giants-carlos-correa-disaster?source=user-shared-article
Pre-career injury is kinda wild if true. Slusser says in another tweet it brings up if the Giants are being too cautious.
View: https://twitter.com/susanslusser/status/1605611677998649352
View: https://twitter.com/susanslusser/status/1605581247467732994
View: https://twitter.com/susanslusser/status/1605611677998649352
View: https://twitter.com/susanslusser/status/1605581247467732994
The only way that will be true is if it impedes their financial flexibility in the future. If Cohen really is fine with potentially paying whatever it takes to win, there might not be a number the Mets could spend that qualifies for that condition.
Correa needed surgery in the minors for a fractured fibula. Is that even something that would have long term issues?
I know, I can't read some of this stuff without laughing:
"The Anger?" Jesus - grow the fuck up Grant.
It’s odd how the two teams that have the most titles this century (30% of the total) have so suddenly forgotten how to run a baseball franchise.
Why did the Twins not even get involved again? Maybe everyone knew Cohen would not be outbid this time,
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