If Carlos Correa and the New York Mets eventually are able to come to an official agreement, the final contract could look much different than the original agreement.
Correa reportedly agreed to a 12-year, $315 million contract with New York on Dec. 21 after his contract with the Giants fell through due to a concern with his medicals. After the Mets reportedly expressed a similar concern as the Giants, Correa's agreement with New York has been put on hold since Christmas Eve as the two sides continue to work out the issue.
On the latest episode of "The Athletic Baseball Show", The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal discussed the impasse that is preventing the Mets and Correa's camp from finalizing a contract and why he believes New York holds most of the leverage in this situation.
"So how does this get resolved? Well one problem here, at least for Correa and his agent Scott Boras, is that the Mets really have all the leverage," Rosenthal said. "If you look at the situation, two times he has been flagged for the same problem for his physical. It would be extremely difficult for him to go back into the open market and say 'OK let's go, 10 years, $300 million, who's in?' That's not happening most likely, because I can't imagine that other teams are going to look at this much differently."
So how do the Mets, who likely would be committing to a long-term contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, protect themselves in the event that Correa misses an extended period of time because of an injury to the leg in question?
"The way to do it in a situation like this is to put something in the contract called an 'exclusion clause' and that basically says if a player spends X number of days on the injured list with this specific injury, the specific injury to that part of his leg, then you can void future years or you can lower the guarantee, there are all kinds of ways to do it," Rosenthal explains. "Now obviously if you're Correa and Boras you don't want this kind of language because it lowers the value of the contract and creates this uncertainty. Clearly, it doesn't have the same."
Although the Mets and Correa still have not worked out the issue after 10 days of holdup, Rosenthal still anticipates a contract getting done, but one that is much different from the original agreement.
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"We expect the Mets to get this done at some point," Rosenthal adds. "We expect it to be a dramatically different deal. It's not going to be 12 years, $315 million guaranteed. The question again is to what extent does the language change, the deal change and how is Carlos Correa going to be once he gets through all this? Will he be a happy Met, will he be upset? Who knows."
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However the situation plays out, Correa and the Mets each will look forward to putting the dilemma behind them.
Whether it's with New York or another team, someone -- eventually -- will wind up with one of the game's best shortstops.
