Twin Killing
Mets lose out on Carlos Correa
Good Morning,
I’m going to jump right into it because we have a lot to cover today. And I’m going to begin by talking about risk profiles. Bare with me for a minute: a risk profile defines an individual or organization’s willingness to take on risk. It is the nexus of capacity, tolerance and need.
Carlos Correa signing with the Twins is a baseball move, but it shines a light on Steve Cohen’s risk profile, something we have been mostly guessing at since he took over as owner of the Mets.
Using the chart below, you can see how risk capacity (the amount of risk you can afford to take) relates to risk tolerance or appetite (the amount of risk you are willing to take). Teams like the Pirates and A’s operate in the lower-left region of the chart — they have neither the capacity nor the tolerance to take on risk. Teams like the Yankees and Dodgers operate somewhere along the right side of the chart — they have both capacity and tolerance. While the Padres have a high tolerance, but less capacity.
Over the past few years, it has been easy to assume that Steve Cohen deserved his own unique space on the chart — nearly unlimited capacity allowing him to have a Joey Chestnut appetite for risk. The Carlos Correa negotiations prove that Mr. Cohen’s tolerance for risk might be a little less than we had thought.
I mentioned last week, either here or in the chat, how the Twins found themselves in a rare position as a small-market team with extra knowledge about a star player who was suddenly available at a discount. If Minnesota was ever going to change their risk tolerance, this was the time to do it. They ended up getting a $350-million player for $200 million, or $85 million less than their initial offer. Pretty impressive.
🍎 How did this happen?
I guess we shouldn’t have been so cavalier in poo-pooing Scott Boras’ ability to find an acceptable alternative for his client.
And how could you blame us? The Twinkies?! They were really going to outbid the Mets for a superstar free agent?! A more awkward pairing hasn’t been imagined since Lorraine McFly nearly fell in love with her own son in Back to the Future. But here we are. Back to the future. With the Twins, for the second consecutive offseason, pulling a rabbit out of their hat by the name of Carlos Correa.
What we clearly underestimated was how much the Mets wanted to get out of a deal that the entire industry thought they were destined to complete.
It’s one thing to build protections in the back-end of a long-term contract, as the Twins ultimately did with Correa, but it’s another to require a physical after every season, as the Mets were reportedly demanding. That’s how you kill a deal while still negotiating to make a deal.
In the end, the Mets offered less guaranteed money upfront and over the first six years of the contract — $157.5 million compared to $200 million. Both offers included conditional guarantees in the later years of the deal, with the Twins basing it off plate appearances in years 7–10, while the Mets wanted to continue annual physicals and base it off both plate appearances and possibly field time in the final years. In total, the Twins’ deal gives Correa the potential to max out at $270 million, about $7.5 million more than non-guaranteed sum in the Mets’ reported final offer.
For those of you who want the nitty gritty details, from The Athletic:
The Twins had to take a risk and front-load their deal, paying Correa $36 million over the next three seasons with $31.5 million due in 2026, $30.5 million in 2027 and $30 million in 2028, according to a club source.
After that, the rest of the contract hinges on vesting and team options. Correa can earn $25 million in 2029 if he accrues 575 plate appearances in 2028. Even if he didn’t reach that total, the Twins have a team option to bring Correa back. Correa needs 550 plate appearances in 2029 to earn a $20 million salary the following season, 525 plate appearances in 2030 to earn $15 million in 2031 and 502 trips to the plate in 2031 to lock in a $10 million salary in 2032, according to a source.
The deal also includes a full no-trade clause for Correa and doesn’t contain any opt-outs.
🍎 Where do the Mets turn next?
I talked about risk capacity and tolerance without mentioning the third component of a risk profile, and that is need. Do the Mets need Carlos Correa to win a championship?
It depends on how wide of a window we are talking. Next year? In five years?
🔷 Focusing on 2023, we know the Mets are already a good team. But nobody is going to let Steve Cohen off the hook for his comments about Correa being the final piece they needed to put them over the top. For all of the money the Mets have spent this offseason, they are mostly the same club as last year’s 101-win squad, with a few new faces expected to adequately replace the forsaken.
You could argue that is good enough. Who wouldn’t want to keep a 100+ win team together? But if you’re not moving forward, you’re often moving back. There’s no guarantee all of the things that came together last season will materialize in the same form this season. It’s really hard to win 100 games. Health can quickly derail your plans. Correa provided depth in a lineup that needs it.
In terms of WAR, FanGraphs still places the Mets third best in all of baseball without Correa, slightly ahead of the Braves. As I noted yesterday, ZiPS pegged Correa as a 5.4-win player at third base, a 3.6-win improvement over the combination of Eduardo Escobar and Luis Guillorme playing full time together at the hot corner. Or enough of a difference to catapult the Mets ahead of the Padres and Yankees as the top team in projected WAR.
WAR, WAR, what is it good for? These are only projections. They are based on playing time estimates and projection models that will never perfectly align with real life. Last season, ZiPS undershot the Mets’ win total by 13 wins, an underestimation fans would surely take again.
Where the Mets could add the most bang for their buck remains at third base, at DH, or with depth pieces in the outfield and bullpen. You will read a bunch of articles over the next few days about Adam Duvall, Trey Mancini and Bryan Reynolds. Those are the easy names. There are surely alternatives on the trade market we don’t know about yet.
There are internal options too. What does this mean for Francisco Álvarez and Brett Baty? Álvarez always had a clear path to contribute this season, but his production will be counted on more now. Meanwhile, Baty might suddenly become a valuable piece in the infield after it looking like he might have to change positions.
🔷 Focusing on the long-term possibilities, if Correa proves healthy enough to play all ten years of his new contract, ZiPS would value him at $319 million, or around what the Mets were originally looking to pay him over 12 years.
Correa is slightly less valuable as a third baseman than a shortstop, both defensively and relative to his offensive production. However, that doesn’t mean he’s not an elite player. Moving to the hot corner is not like moving from shortstop to first base or to DH. He was expected to handle the position change swimmingly. And his 136 wRC+, which ranks second among qualified shortstops over the past two seasons, still ranks fifth among third baseman during that time.
🔻 This isn’t LOL Mets. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that Uncle Stevie’s risk appetite will allow for another big acquisition by the trade deadline to make up for losing out on Correa. But it’s understandable if Mets fans are feeling disappointed this morning. They had a 28-year-old Gold Glove and All-Star infielder within their grasp and he somehow got away.
“Everyone is disappointed,” one Met told the NY Post. “If the possibility wasn’t there nobody would have complained. However, the possibility was there to get much better, and it didn’t happen.”
You make yourself feel better by looking at the projections in the out years above. Even if Correa meets his plate appearance qualifications, his expected value starts to look closer to Ryan McMahon than Austin Riley by Year 5 of his new deal.
And for everyone noting how the Braves and Phillies are celebrating this morning, are they also celebrating the fact the Dodgers basically did nothing this offseason?
The Mets haven’t proven to be perennial winners like the Boys in Blue (yet), but if they hope to follow in their footsteps, passing on players like Correa is a page from their book. Sure, the Dodgers have added Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman in recent years. But they have also refused to deal with Boras and watched Max Scherzer, Corey Seager and Trea Turner sign more expensive deals elsewhere. They are prepared to fill in several holes with their farm system this year. The Amazins don’t have nearly the same depth, but they have at least a few top-level players ready to make an impact. Perhaps this is the runway Brett Baty needs.
🍎 Final Thoughts
Steve Cohen passed an important test. Once again, he bucked convention, revealing his fan excitement over initially signing Correa, before resetting himself as a businessman to ultimately move on when the risks proved too great.
As Cohen knows well from his hedge fund job, sometimes you’re wrong. He could be wrong on this. He’s shown a lot of trust in his medical staff to pass on both Kumar Rocker and Carlos Correa because of long-term injury concerns.
But new investment opportunities always present themselves, both in finance and in baseball. The Twins might never find themselves in a position to sign a player like Correa at a price they can afford again. The Mets remain in position to sign anyone they want. That’s why Shohei Ohtani’s name will follow them throughout the calendar year.
I’m not going to say the Mets are better because they avoided the long-term risk associated with Correa. How do you value the potential of being stronger today versus the long-term risk of injury and the cost of paying a potential injured player when you have seemingly unlimited funds? I guess that’s what took three weeks to figure out.
What I do feel better about today is Cohen’s ability to make decisions based on logic instead of headlines. That’s how the Dodgers think. That’s how the Astros think. That’s how you build a perennial contender.
Carlos Correa offered Cohen the chance to make a statement that the Mets have officially arrived. At least, that would have been the narrative. By passing on that opportunity, it’s safe to say Steve Cohen has officially arrived as a baseball owner. It’s easy to spend money, it’s harder to build a sustainable baseball team.
A few more news and notes from yesterday…
🗣️ RUMORS: It didn’t take long for the Mets to be tied to a new player after Correa signed with the Twins. Jon Heyman reports the Amazins are among teams to have shown interest in reliever Zack Britton.
🔝 RELIEVER: Edwin Díaz was unsurprisngly named the top reliever on MLB Network’s most recent Top 10 Right Now list.
🚜 DOWN ON THE FARM: Francisco Álvarez ranked second by MLB execs asked Which prospect has the most usable power?
🔗 The culprit in Carlos Correa’s deflated free-agent contract? His ankle more than his agent, by Ken Rosenthal, The Athletic ($): “A number of rival agents, speaking on condition of anonymity because they did not want to publically criticize a peer, say Boras should have anticipated the issues that arose in Correa’s physical, then worked to minimize the damage to his market. Other agents, however, believe the problems for Correa in the marketplace were inevitable, and that Boras’ work is impossible to evaluate without knowing more about the specifics of Correa’s medicals and his negotiations.”
🔗 ‘Disappointed’ Mets shouldn’t be down about Carlos Correa getting away, by Jon Heyman, NY Post: “‘The Braves and Phillies must be very happy today,’ one Met said. That alone also makes the Mets sad. But Buck up Mets, from here your team is still the best in the league.”
🔗 As Carlos Correa heads to Twins, it feels like Mets came up short, by Laura Albanese, Newsday: “The Mets' lineup is essentially a retread of what they had last year, and though 101 wins is nothing to scoff at, it didn’t do them a whole lot of good in the playoffs. There isn’t much left on the market currently, and they’ve been loath to trade away prospects, since Cohen is looking to rebuild the farm system that was gutted in recent years.”
🔗 After letting Carlos Correa go, Mets must be prepared to go all-in at 2023 MLB trade deadline, by John Harper, SNY: “Whether they have the right players to win in October is a different question, but they have time to figure that out. If Alvarez and/or Baty aren’t good answers in 2023, there are sure to be some at the trade deadline.”
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One reason the Mets wouldn’t want to rely on Correa as DH only option in back years - it would constrain the potential value of Othani. They need their long term contract players to be able to play the field. Bummer situation but the Mets did what they needed to do - hold the line & move on.