Carlos Correa is a wanted man.
The former Houston Astros star is one of five elite shortstops on the open market this winter, along with Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager, Colorado Rockies’ Trevor Story, Toronto Blue Jays’ Marcus Semien and New York Mets’ Javier Baez.
Last week, the Detroit Tigers jumped into the Correa sweepstakes when he and his former manager, AJ Hinch (now the skipper in Detroit), had breakfast.
At the time, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported, “Yes, the conversation was so good they stayed until lunch. Yes, the Tigers badly need a shortstop. No, it does not mean Correa is close to signing with Detroit. Lots of offseason.”
But on Monday, during the press conference to introduce newly-signed left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez (five years, $77 million), Hinch tried to downplay the meal. Per the Detroit Free Press: “I didn’t order lunch, so it was only breakfast; and I didn’t realize it was as big a deal as it was. I was delivering a baby gift.”
Right.
Tigers general manager Al Avila also tried to pump the brakes on the Correa rumors.
“At the end of the season, we said, we were gonna take a measured approach to the offseason. ... We’re going to sign players to make this team better. But we have to be careful as we move forward. Not one player is going to make us a winner, we have to make sure that we can build a good 26-man roster … and we’re going to be very careful in how we do it. ... There’s more ways of putting together a winning team on the field. So if it doesn’t work out the shortstop area, then we might have to look at other areas to make the team better in order to for us to put a winning team on the field.”
Hinch backed his boss: “There’s not just one answer. There’s a lot of different ways for us to go about this for the next four weeks or whatever. But we’re getting better.”
Both ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel and The Athletic’s Jim Bowden have released their projected contracts for the free-agent shortstops. Based their numbers and the quotes coming out of Detroit, it sure sounds like the Tigers won’t be paying top dollar for Correa, a two-time All-Star who won a Gold Glove Award this year.
- McDaniel: 9 years, $297 million.
- Bowden: 10 years, $300 million.
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Mike Rosenstein may be reached at mrosenstein@njadvancemedia.com.
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