The New York Mets still haven’t announced their deal with Carlos Correa.
And while it might not be time to sound any alarms, it’s possible the sides will need to tweak their original agreement after the Mets reportedly discovered something in Correa’s medicals that raised concerns.
In fact, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, the new contract could look much different.
“We expect the Mets to get this done at some point,” Rosenthal said this week on “The Athletic Baseball Show” podcast. “We expect it to be a dramatically different deal. It’s not going to be 12 years, $315 (million) guaranteed. The question again is to what extent does the language change, the deal change and how is Carlos Correa going to be once he gets through all this? Will he be a happy Met? Will he be upset? Who knows.”
It’s been an eventful few weeks for Correa, who reportedly agreed to a 13-year, $350 million contract with the San Francisco Giants, only to have the club pull out just before his introductory press conference over concerns stemming from his physical. The Mets swooped in at that point, continuing a wild offseason spending spree, but they, too, saw something that’s evidently giving them pause.
The holdup reportedly stems from Correa’s surgically repaired right leg/ankle, an injury he suffered as a prospect with the Houston Astros back in 2014 but otherwise hasn’t forced him to miss time during his Major League Baseball career.
“So, how does this get resolved? Well, one problem here, at least for Correa and his agent Scott Boras, is that the Mets have really all the leverage,” Rosenthal said. “If you look at the situation, two times he has been flagged for the same problem with his physical. It would be extremely difficult for him to go back into the open market and say, ‘OK, let’s go, 10 years, $300 million, who’s in?’ That’s not happening most likely, because I can’t imagine that other teams are going to look at this much differently.”
It remains to be seen whether the issue will significantly lessen the contract’s length and/or total dollar value. Instead, as Rosenthal notes, the major change could come in the form of an exclusion clause, which basically would safeguard against Correa missing a certain amount of time due to the specific injury/physical situation that’s been flagged.
All told, the saga continues, although Correa’s recent Instagram activity suggests he’s still optimistic about landing in New York when the dust finally settles.
