In the hours after Carlos Correa agreed to a 13-year, $350 million deal with the Giants, with the Twins stinging from losing out in their pursuit, Twins Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey offered this quote to Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan:
Carlos Correa's stunning switch to Mets adds to Twins' pain — and relief
The free agent changed alliances from the Giants to the Mets overnight, a sign that the Twins were no better than third in the sweepstakes to get him.
December 21, 2022 at 4:28PM
"Maybe I'm just telling myself this, but maybe it took an offer of that length to get him to want to leave, to have that kind of gap in the offers."
As it turns out, it didn't take that much of a gap after all — making the Twins' pain, after a wild turn of events in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, perhaps even more acute.
The Twins' final offer was reported as being 10 years, $285 million. We learned overnight that Correa is instead now going to the Mets on a 12-year, $315 million deal. That's still a gap, but the chasm was more than cut in half.
Free agency isn't prison (Josh Donaldson notwithstanding), and you don't get credit for time served. But if you add the $35 million the Twins gave Correa in 2022 to that final offer, you get 11 years, $320 million — one fewer year, $5 million more than the Mets.
It seems like Correa (and agent Scott Boras) had a plan and stuck to it, even through a detour: Get as much money from a large-market team as possible.
The Twins were either never really a factor or came in (at least) third, depending on your perspective, as I talked about on Wednesday's Daily Delivery podcast.
The reported reason for the stunning switch-a-roo? Boras told the New York Post that there was a "difference of opinion" over a medical issue during Correa's medical evaluation with the Giants.
The Mets swooped in, and — pending their own medical evaluation — nabbed Correa and plan to make him a third baseman next to Francisco Lindor.
Assuming the deal goes through, the Mets will have a payroll of almost $400 million next season while paying about $100 million in tax penalties. Half a billion dollars in one season.
"What the heck's the difference? If you're going to make the move make the move," Mets owner Steve Cohen told the Post about the Correa move and the Mets' bloated payroll.
That's the summation of the line between an obscenely rich man owning a large-market team and an obscenely rich family running a mid-market team.
If you're going to run it like a business, like the Pohlad family does with the Twins, there is a difference. You can't afford to miss on Correa if it's a business.
If whatever this medical concern is turns out to be something that impacts his decade-or-so on the field, perhaps the Twins should feel a little bit of relief mixed in with the pain.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
