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Jeff PassanESPN
THE ITINERARY WAS set. On Sunday night, Carlos Correa, his wife, son, parents, siblings and in-laws would descend on San Francisco and check in to their rooms on the 12th floor of the St. Regis hotel. On Monday, Correa would undergo a physical examination by the San Francisco Giants, the final step to make official the $350 million deal they’d agreed to six days earlier. On Tuesday, the entire family would attend Correa’s introductory news conference, followed by a cable-car tour of the city and media blitzkrieg. It was perfect, a three-day introduction for a contract set to last 13 years.
And then it all fell apart.
On Monday night, Correa’s agent, Scott Boras, also posted up on the 12th floor, received a call from Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi expressing trepidation over results from the standard medical analysis of Correa. Their concerns were with Correa’s lower right leg, which had been surgically repaired in 2014 after he broke his fibula on a slide during a minor league game. It was an injury Correa hadn’t thought about in years, and suddenly it was putting in jeopardy the fourth-largest guaranteed contract in North American sports history.
The team asked Boras for more time to consider whether to honor or walk away from the agreement. The Giants postponed Tuesday morning’s news conference, the first sign to the world that something was amiss. Correa sat, waited and tried to stay calm, even as his family struggled to.
Finally, about 1 p.m. PT, the parties reengaged on the phone. Boras asked team officials whether they intended to proceed with the 13-year contract. The Giants said they did not — at least not at its current length and value. Perhaps they could work out a new deal.
What came next staggered the sports world and set off a chain of events certain to reverberate through the game for years to come. The story of how Correa lost his megadeal with the Giants and about 10 hours later agreed to another with the New York Mets was pieced together by ESPN through interviews with people involved in the negotiations as well as those with knowledge of the situation.
It is a tale of how a team eager to sign a star this winter wound up empty-handed and another replete with big names wound up with one more. It is a case study of how a team like the Giants, whose meticulousness defines their roster-building, contrasts with the Mets, whose owner is remaking the sport in real time with truckfuls of cash. And it is a peek inside a hotel room in San Francisco, where excitement devolved into devastation before culminating in joy.
Sitting in the St. Regis on Tuesday afternoon, Correa and Boras got to work. Correa had braved a disappointing free agency a year earlier. This time, the stakes were even higher. They had discussed contingency plans, and almost immediately they would launch one. Don’t regroup. Don’t wait a week. Go get a deal. Now. Because if the Giants weren’t going to lavish Correa with money, someone else would.
UNTIL 8:15 A.M. PT Tuesday, there were no signs publicly that the Giants were even considering failing Correa’s physical. Then came a seven-word statement, equal parts spare and cryptic, put out by the organization a day after it had announced its executives would hold a media availability: “Today’s Giants press conference has been postponed.”
The use of “postponed” implied that the Correa announcement simply was delayed. But the reality was far more ominous. The notion that a long-ago injury that hadn’t hindered Correa at all over his eight major league seasons would scuttle the deal made little sense to the two-time All-Star shortstop. Nevertheless, Boras late into the night reached out to doctors familiar with Correa’s medical records who vouched for his present health and suggested the risk going forward was not acute.
The Giants were not convinced. The team’s fear, according to people with knowledge of their assessment, concerned the long-term stability of his leg — and the potential for Correa to quickly lose the mobility that won him a Platinum Glove in 2021. Boras scoffed at that notion, citing the 10-year offer made this winter by the Minnesota Twins, for whom Correa played during the 2022 season. If a team familiar with his medical history was willing to offer Correa a decade-long contract, his reasoning went, how bad could the injury really be?
Minnesota had signed Correa to a three-year, $105.3 million contract in March after his first foray into free agency didn’t bear a deal most expected to breach the $300 million mark. Correa thrived in Minnesota, posting a park-adjusted OPS 40% higher than league average and 5.4 wins above replacement, according to Baseball-Reference.com. When he opted out of the final two years of the deal and hit the market again this winter, Correa met with the Twins, Giants, Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres, all of whom sought to sign a shortstop.
First, Trea Turner went to the Phillies for $300 million. Then Xander Bogaerts signed with San Diego for $280 million. Correa continued to wait for an even bigger deal to emerge. When the Giants’ top target, American League MVP Aaron Judge, returned to the New York Yankees for $360 million during the winter meetings on Dec. 7, the Giants’ pivot was clear: build around Correa, who would be the first face of their franchise since catcher Buster Posey, the fulcrum of their three World Series titles in the 2010s.
San Francisco’s offer to Correa guaranteed him more money than all but three players in baseball history, behind only Mike Trout, Mookie Betts and Judge. Around 8:45 p.m PT on Dec. 13, Correa and the Giants had agreed to terms on the 13-year, $350 million contract, pending a physical. Six days later in San Francisco, the Giants put him through a battery of tests, drew blood work and examined images of his whole body, including his back — which had concerned other teams because of a 2019 injury — and leg.
Before an in-person physical, teams are often in the dark as to the full nature of a player’s health. During the free agent process, agents can provide notes from doctors and teams can access a finite amount of medical records. Not typically included among them, multiple general managers said, is the imaging that provides the clearest picture of a player’s health, past and present.
The first phone call on Monday night, after the physical concluded, alerted Correa to the Giants’ apprehension. By this point, immolating the deal would have significant consequences for the Giants. In the days since they agreed with Correa, shortstop Dansby Swanson — the final elite position-playing free agent — had come to terms with the Chicago Cubs on a $177 million contract. Left-hander Carlos Rodón, who had starred for the Giants in 2022, agreed to a $162 million deal with the Yankees. Losing Correa would mean losing out on the 19 highest-paid free agents in a winter during which the Giants expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars following a disappointing 81-81 finish.
The postponement of the news conference and media tour furthered fears in Correa’s camp and garnered attention externally. And the Tuesday-afternoon phone call made it official: When the Giants said they no longer planned to execute the agreed-upon contract, it rendered Correa a free agent again.
Correa did not intend to sit idly waiting for a new contract offer from them. Time was of the essence, and more than 2,000 miles away, Steve Cohen was champing at the bit to make him a Met.
ON THE NIGHT Correa agreed to terms with the Giants, the Mets — whose offseason spending was approaching $500 million, with a 2023 payroll expected to shatter previous spending records — made an 11th-hour run at him. Their offer simply didn’t match the Giants’. In a world without San Francisco’s top offer, though, the Mets — a team that already had a $341 million shortstop, Francisco Lindor — represented the perfect landing spot.
During a chaotic offseason, the Mets had mostly made sure their 2023 version would be as good as it was in 2022: re-signing center fielder Brandon Nimmo, closer Edwin Díaz and reliever Adam Ottavino, plus adding AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander to replace Jacob deGrom, Japanese star Kodai Senga to fill Chris Bassitt’s rotation spot and veteran left-hander Jose Quintana as the Taijuan Walker substitute. That team was excellent — it won 101 games — but bowed out to San Diego in the wild-card series. Adding Correa — even at a cost that would be franchise-altering for most teams — would represent a true upgrade.
And that cost is less daunting to Cohen than most. A hedge fund manager with a net worth estimated by Forbes of $17.5 billion, Cohen is far and away the richest owner in baseball. His purchase of the Mets from the Wilpon family in November 2020 instantaneously turned a team that had carried a sub-$100 million payroll as recently as 2014 into a destination. When asked at his own news conference Tuesday morning what persuaded him to sign with the Mets, Verlander offered a one-word answer: “Steve.”
Soon after Verlander retreated from the dais, Cohen — who was vacationing in Hawaii — reached out to Mets general manager Billy Eppler. News had just broken of Correa’s postponed news conference, and if that indicated a potential opportunity, they might need to talk. Around 1:30 p.m. PT, Boras reached out to Cohen. Correa was available. And thus began a dance that would last deep into the night in New York.
At the Mets’ offices in Queens, a small group worked up an updated valuation on Correa. They teased potential offers. They couldn’t lowball Correa, not with the baseline set at $350 million nor with Boras likely soliciting offers elsewhere. And he was, reaching out to the Twins, who had grown fond of Correa and offered him a $285 million deal before he agreed with San Francisco. Minnesota, spooked slightly by the failed physical, wasn’t inclined to raise its offer, at least not on the quick timeline Boras sought.
The Mets, meanwhile, were in deal mode. Cohen and Eppler spoke on Eppler’s drive home from the office and agreed to connect with Boras. They wanted to understand why the Giants had failed Correa. Boras’ explanation was satisfactory enough to continue talking. Boras sought a deal of 12 years at an average annual value similar to the $26.9 million in the original San Francisco offer. The Mets balked.
But a Correa-Mets union was too appealing for Cohen to play hardball — especially after his wife, Alex, a die-hard Mets fan whose father, Ralph Garcia, regularly attended games at Citi Field even through the leanest years, advocated for him to sign Correa. Cohen and Eppler kept talking. They texted with Boras. They spoke again. It was past midnight for Eppler, 9 p.m. for Boras, 7 p.m. for Cohen. Correa occasionally came into Boras’ room, where he was staked out with lieutenants Mike Fiore, Tyler Beckstrom and Luis Garcia, and rubbed Boras’ shoulders. “I’m good,” Correa said. “Do your thing.”
The deal zone was nigh. The Mets were about $10 million shy of where Cohen and Eppler believed they needed to go. Cohen, now at dinner, said he could push it across the finish line. And for a million dollars a year more, Eppler was on board. They would offer $315 million over 12 years — and Correa would be their new starting third baseman, a shift that, unlike most shortstops reluctant to be moved off the marquee position, didn’t bother him.
Around 11 p.m. PT, they agreed on contract terms. About 30 minutes later, the particulars — a full no-trade clause, no opt-outs — were finalized. And at 11:38 p.m. — 2:38 a.m. on the East Coast — 10 or so hours after Correa’s deal with the Giants disintegrated, the New York Post reported the biggest shocker of a winter full of them: Carlos Correa was in agreement with the Mets. Pending physical, of course.
Correa celebrated by tackling Boras and tossing him on the bed in the room. Correa couldn’t help himself. The disillusionment of 30 hours earlier had melted into bliss.
THE REVERBERATIONS AROUND baseball were instantaneous — once the rest of the sport woke up to the news Wednesday morning. In an offseason of record spending, nobody spent quite like the Mets, whose commitments, including Correa, totaled $806.1 million. In a landscape not bound by a salary cap, nobody had ever pushed financial boundaries quite like the Mets, whose post-Correa payroll was estimated by Baseball Prospectus at $385 million. Tack on $111 million in luxury-tax penalties — about $81 million of which come from a 90% rate for exceeding the top threshold of $293 million, colloquially referred to as the Cohen tax — and the 2023 Mets would be pushing a total outlay of nearly $500 million.
“We’ve never had a Man City in baseball,” said one general manager, referring to Manchester City, the English Premier League team known for its extravagant spending. For all the consternation, all the searing takes about what this means for baseball, he didn’t say it with regret as much as he did jealousy and awe. The Mets are a living experiment, the modern litmus test for whether money can buy a championship. Teams across baseball recognize that if the Mets want a player, they’re probably going to win the bidding war. They started their winter by making Díaz the first $100 million closer on the day after the World Series ended. And their last big splash was a deal for $315 million, their third nine-figure free agent signing in two months.
At the St. Regis, the entire Correa crew woke up rested. Boras, who had plowed through three bags of throat lozenges while spending most of the previous two evenings on the phone, had finally recharged himself. He was greeted that morning by Correa, his wife, Daniella, and the rest of the family with hugs. Correa’s 1-year-old son, Kylo, managed to give him a high-five. Correa decamped to Houston for a day and is expected to be in New York on Thursday, when he’ll start the physical process that’s expected to end Friday. As natural as the fear of another failure may be, the fact that Cohen spoke on the record about the deal to the Post indicates that he’s every bit as comfortable with Correa’s leg and back as he is his glove and bat.
The Giants, meanwhile, put out a statement at 9:43 a.m., this one slightly more verbose than the one a day prior. The team can’t say much, on account of HIPAA laws that prevent it from discussing medical matters of players not under contract, but addressed the events of the previous 24 hours.
“While we are prohibited from disclosing confidential medical information, as Scott Boras stated publicly,” said the statement, attributed to Zaidi, “there was a difference of opinion over the results of Carlos’ physical examination. We wish Carlos the best.”
Correa, meanwhile, thinks he’s already found it. On a day that looked dire, in a situation that screamed no-win, he landed on the best-case outcome: with a team in the running for the best in the division, in a city many call the best baseball town in America, with an owner whose desire to be the best is now unequivocal.