The Major League Baseball world is buzzing over the news that broke early Wednesday that rumored Chicago Cubs free-agent target, shortstop Carlos Correa, thought to be joining the San Francisco Giants on a 13-year deal worth $350MM, will instead be headed to the New York Mets on a 12-year deal worth $315MM.
The first sign of trouble for the Giants occurred on Tuesday morning when the team announced that Correa's introductory press conference was delayed due to a medical issue that was discovered as the shortstop was taking his physical for the team. No further information was provided and that paved the way for Jon Heyman to set fire to the Major League Baseball industry with his breaking news on Wednesday morning.
One sentence has changed the entire landscape of Major League Baseball.
The Giants, in light of Correa jumping ship and signing with the Mets, have now become the current punchline for baseball.
To say that the offseason has turned into a major disappointment for the Giants would be an understatement. The Giants were among the finalists for free-agent outfielder Aaron Judge with it looking like Judge would sign with the team before ultimately deciding to go back to the New York Yankees. The Giants then took the money that they were going to give Judge and offered it to Correa. The deal was made. The press conference was scheduled until the moment it wasn't.
Giants' president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi is now in the crossfires with many calling for his job after the fiasco with Correa. At the General Manager meetings just last month, Zaidi had this to say:
"“I don’t think from a financial standpoint there’s nobody that would be out of our capability to kind of meet what we expect the contract demands will be,” Zaidi said at the General Managers Meetings. “Then it’ll just be a question of whether there’s mutual interest and how we put together the best possible team.”"Mark Feinsand, MLB
The comments from Zaidi are very similar in nature to the comments that have been originating from the Cubs' ownership group this offseason. Cubs' chairman Tom Ricketts has insisted that the team has money to spend and that has been backed up by team president of business operations Crane Kenney.
Pressure was on Cubs' president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer to make an impact move and he ultimately came through with a seven-year deal with free-agent shortstop Dansby Swanson worth $177MM.
But in light of the news with Correa, would Hoyer have survived a similar type of fiasco?
The answer to that question may be no. Pressure was already mounting on Hoyer and had he been the frontman for a move only to have the move swept from underneath his feet? That is a miscue that the Cubs' president of baseball operations may not have been able to survive, especially given the believed tensions between the Cubs' baseball operations and business operations.