Carlos Correa backs out of Giants deal, signs with Mets. How does this impact the Blue Jays?
In a league-shattering development, Carlos Correa has reportedly failed to sign with the San Francisco Giants.
Previously, Correa was said to have signed a massive 13-year, $350M contract to play in the NL West, giving the Giants their shortstop of the present and the future.
However, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweeted Monday that the Correa-Giants introductory press conference had been postponed due to medical concerns. Naturally, the MLB world began to speculate and come up with all sorts of crazy ideas as to why this was.
After this was reported, hours and hours of radio silence went by as the baseball world (primarily Giants fans) held their collective breaths as we waited for an answer as to what was going on. Surely Correa just had the flu or something and was just recovering before making his mega deal with the Giants official, right?
Wrong.
Last night at around 2:00 in the morning, Jon Heyman took to Twitter to announce that the impossible had happened while everyone in the industry slept. Everyone, that is, except for Steve Cohen and the New York Mets.
There you have it! Carlos Correa's uber-deal with the San Francisco Giants has fallen through and he is now heading to the New York Mets (pending physical, of course) in an overnight stunner.
It's worth noting that Correa has had back issues in the past and has at times had some issues staying on the field, primarily in each season from 2017-2019.
This is a Blue Jays blog and Jays fans are probably wondering why an article like this has a place on the site. Well, I believe the Giants are about to stop at nothing to try and replace the production they would have received from Correa and I think there's all of a sudden a new entrant to the trade market.
The Giants just so happen to have some left-handed outfield options and a need at catcher. See where I'm going with this?
Each of Mike Yastrzemski (32), LaMonte Wade Jr. (29 next week) and Luis González (27) fit the mold of what the Jays could be looking for in a deal. Both Yastrzemski and Wade are not set to hit free agency until the conclusion of the 2025 season while González is under contract through 2027.
While Yastrzemski is the older of the three players, he also was the best player last year. In 148 games for the Giants, "Yaz" hit 31 doubles, 17 home runs and drove in 57 runs. He hit for just a .214 average, lower than his career norms and posted an OPS+ of 96. For his career, his OPS+ sits at 114, so he has consistenly been above-average.
Wade also had a down year last season but honestly, so did the entire Giants roster. In 77 contests at the big league level, he hit just eight home runs and drove in 26. His OPS+ sat at 88 and he was worth exactly 0.0 bWAR. However, he is only one season removed from gathering NL MVP votes.
Then there's González, who showed some serious promise in a 98-game rookie campaign last season. His pop seems to be still developing (although he will never hit 15+ home runs in a season) but he's got some speed on the base paths, a decent batter's eye and is capable of playing all three spots in the outfield, as are Yaz and Wade.
Now that the Giants missed out on Correa, they are in a place where they're going to have to be ultra aggressive on the trade market. There are no big shortstops left in free agency so the time to swing a huge deal is now.
I can realistically see a scenario where the Giants dangle one of these outfielders alongside a reliever and a decent prospect in trade talks for one of the Jays' catchers not named Moreno.