What happened
A little more than a week ago, the Giants made Aaron Judge a huge offer and he called up his old bosses and said, match this and I’ll come home. They did, he went home, because he wanted to be a Yankee.
Last Wednesday: Counter to what I thought would happen, the San Francisco Giants front office identified the best remaining free agent on the market and came to an agreement for one of the biggest deals in baseball history. Carlos Correa changed his twitter banner to Oracle Park. Fans celebrated. (I called up my dad and waxed poetic about how the centerpiece of the team would be a Puerto Rican player which to me was a great callback to the 60s and 70s, and made me excited for the core of Spanish-speaking players on the team.)
Aside from some mild critiques of the size of the contract — 13 years for $350 million, which is just what it takes to get a big deal done these days — mostly everyone was rejoicing.
15 minutes after the news broke, though we didn’t know it at the time*: Giants president Farhan Zaidi and manager Gabe Kapler called shortstop Brandon Crawford and told him he wouldn’t be shortstop anymore, after 11 years of playing that position and only that position, because Correa was going to be the everyday shortstop. He said, uh ok. (Some have criticized Farhan and Gabe for not telling Craw sooner, but when big news is breaking and you don’t want it to leak, it sucks but this is what you have to do.)
Monday morning: The Giants scheduled a presser at Oracle Park for Tuesday, which was understood by all beat reporters to be an introduction to Carlos Correa. Some reporters noted the presser was to be followed by a cable car ride. Whee.
The Giants also booked Carlos, Farhan, and Gabe to all appear on KNBR over the course of the next day.
Monday, at some point after the presser was scheduled: Carlos Correa had his physical exam.
Early Tuesday morning: The Giants cancelled all of the radio appearances and sent a terse message postponing the presser.
Also early Tuesday morning, though we didn’t know it at the time: Correa, his wife, and parents were at a hotel preparing for the press conference in which he would be introduced.
Tuesday afternoon: The AP and Susan Slusser reported that there were some issues in Correa’s physical and the Giants were awaiting further tests.
Also Tuesday afternoon, though we didn’t know it at the time: Scott Boras, Correa’s agent, said while the Giants indicated they wanted to negotiate at first, they had gone radio silent on him and eventually let him know he could proceed to negotiate with other teams. So he called up New York Mets owner Steve Scott Cohen who was some number of martinis deep at dinner in Hawaii.
Tuesday evening: everyone was like ummmmmmm? OK it’ll probably work out tomorrow.
Midnight Wednesday: it was announced that Boras and Cohen made a deal for $315 million, 12 years, and that Correa would play third base for the Mets, next to shortstop Francisco Lindor.
Wednesday morning 7 a.m. Pacific time: [bird sounds iphone alarm]
It was actually awful.
Wednesday all day: chaos. I have so much admiration for the beat reporters trying to find out what was going on while being totally stonewalled by the Giants organization. Late morning, Farhan released a brief statement saying that there was a difference of opinion on Correa’s exam and that he wished him “the best.” Correa’s agent Scott Boras then took control of the narrative, explaining that he’d given the Giants a chance to work through the issue, and filled in a lot of detail from his perspective.
The Giants have been completely silent since Farhan’s statement.
As a long time, part-time Mets enjoyer, I’m happy for these fans, I guess.
But just to be totally clear: This has never happened before with a deal this size. This is like, “Moonlight, you guys won” levels of chaos, except with what will surely be years-long repercussions.
To date, I’ve mostly been like, “well I guess they know what they’re doing” when it comes to this front office’s decisions — specifically around reclamation projects and platooning. But right now I have no idea what they’re doing. It makes no sense that Farhan killed the deal: he has nothing to lose 7-8-9 years from now when Correa starts looking bad on the payroll since he probably won’t even be in the organization. The current reporting is that there was an old pre-MLB injury that the Giants were concerned about — which is fine, except that the Twins, who had him all last year, made a big play to keep him, which was rejected in favor of the Giants’ offer. And the Mets, who have the biggest payroll in baseball, were happy to add him to their roster seemingly on a whim.
Time will tell if this was a sound decision from a medical perspective. We won’t know until we see what Correa’s production is over the next couple of seasons. But given his recent history as a player, Occam’s Razor suggests Giants ownership got cold feet on this big deal and took an exit ramp as soon as they could. I was thrilled about Correa but shared the same concerns everyone else did: injury history, long long long contract, etc. But that’s the market right now. Owners are giving contracts to men who will be paid into their 40s, in order to have the production for the next 3-5 years. Why do the Giants’ owners, who have the fifth most valuable franchise in the MLB, but finished 81-81 last year, feel like they’re exempt from that? And why would they do this in such an unprecedented and spectacularly feckless fashion to the fans (and to the first big free agent they had made an agreement with in decades)? The Athletic’s Baggarly has more questions worth asking:
Time machine
Here’s what was in my drafts last week, as I decided to wait on the official presser to talk about Correa:
Being a Giants fan the last week has been an extremely joyful experience. If only because Farhan broke what had begun to feel like a generational curse. While we love (and I mean loveeeee) the homegrown guys, the Giants have long had trouble landing elite free agent talent. Correa will enlighten us next week in a press conference why he chose the Gigantes, but for now, let me say, what a great week this has been. It’s not our money, after all.
And after all of this, we have to look at Carlos Rodon in pinstripes with a baby face.
More soon?
Shani
* The reporting on this entire fiasco has been spectacular. So many reporters have worked to fill in the blanks here, and I expect that they’ll continue to dig into this situation which, despite the Giants seeming refusal to speak further, isn’t going to go away. Special shoutouts to Alex Pavlovic, Susan Slusser, Andrew Baggarly, and Ron Blum.