The Minnesota Twins continued a monster week of trading by adding one of the best free agents on the market, agreeing to a three-year, $105.3 million deal with free-agent shortstop Carlos Correa, a source told Jon Paul Morosi. from MLB.com on Friday night.
The contract includes the possibility of opting for the first two years. The club has not confirmed the deal.
Correa didn’t perform at his usual level during the shortened 2020 season, but he produced a big postseason run and then carried that into his contract year. He made his second All-Star team in 2021 and hit .279/.366/.485 (131 OPS+) with 26 home runs, 34 doubles, 92 RBIs and 104 runs scored.
He also shone defensively, ranking sixth among MLB shortstops in Statcast’s Outs Above Average (plus-12) metric. Between his excellence with the bat and the glove, Correa generated 7.2 WAR as a position player, according to Baseball-Reference, surpassing Marcus Semien and Juan Soto for the MLB lead.
This type of production is nothing new for Correa. Since the start of his first full season in 2016, he ranks first among shortstops in bWAR (29.3) and fifth among all position players, trailing only Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, Nolan Arenado and Jose Ramirez.
The first overall pick in the 2012 Puerto Rico Baseball Academy Draft, Correa rocketed through the Astros’ Minor League system, becoming a consensus top-five prospect before making his major league debut. on June 8, 2015 – more than three months before his 21st birthday. He was an immediate success, taking AL Rookie of the Year honors despite playing only 99 games.
Correa’s biggest problem since then has been injuries. Large for a shortstop, at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, she has had to deal with a torn thumb ligament, a fractured rib and multiple back strains. Correa missed 192 of the Astros’ 486 games (39.5%) between 2017 and 19, although he played in 148 games in 2021.
Despite those setbacks, Correa has put himself in rare company to this point. His 133 career home runs through his age-26 season rank fifth all-time among AL/LN shortstops, and his .277/.356/.481 batting line translates to an OPS+ of 127 which ranks him seventh in that group (among those with more than 2,000 plate appearances). He, too, has been a postseason stalwart, with his 18 homers tied for seventh on the running list and his 59 RBIs tied for sixth.
We would love to give thanks to the author of this article for this remarkable material
Carlos Correa agrees with the Twins (source)