NEW YORK (AP) — Forget about RBIs and OPS. Carlos Correa’s free-agent destination was decided by MRIs.
At the end of the most convoluted high-profile free-agent negotiation in baseball history, the small-market Minnesota Twins ended up with the All-Star shortstop — and not the San Francisco Giants or New York Mets — because of their doctors’ comfort with Correa’s surgicaly repaired right leg.
San Francisco balked at finalizing a $350 million, 13-year contract with the 28-year-old, and then the Mets hesitated to close a $315 million, 12-year deal, both after a scan of Correa’s tibia alarmed their physicians.
As it turned out, those concerns cost Correa over $100 million in guaranteed money.
Correa, best known as the shortstop for the 2017 World Series champion Houston Astros, spent 2022 with Minnesota. The team’s medical staff, having examined the two-time All-Star several times over the past year, felt more comfortable with the ankle, which was repaired in 2014.
And so the Twins went ahead with a $200 million, six-year agreement that was finalized Wednesday — 29 days after Correa agreed with the Giants and 21 days after he struck a deal with the Mets.
Right back where he started. Here’s a look at how he got there:
WHY DID THE DEALS WITH THE GIANTS AND METS COLLAPSE?
Correa injured his right leg in 2014 while playing with the Class A Lancaster JetHawks, and doctors inserted a metal plate during surgery to repair it. The consternation centers on whether the ankle healed in a way that might hinder Correa as he ages.
Correa’s agent, Scott Boras, maintains it’s only a question of “pain tolerance.”
“It’s not a functionality,” Boras said Wednesday at Correa’s introductory news conference in Minnesota. “It’s just how long you weather the pain to play, and he has never had…