Carlos Correa clears the air about Astros' last-ditch effort to re-sign him
ASTROS NEWS
23 March 2022
ASTROS NEWS
ESPN's Marly Rivera caught up with former Astros SS Carlos Correa on Wednesday and asked him about signing with the Twins and what happened with the Astros. Correa told Rivera that he has "nothing but love" for the Astros and their organization. But he also said the Astros never made him an offer post-lockout. Wow. Really, Astros?
Carlos Correa told me he has “nothing but love” for Houston and Astros front office and ownership, but also said the club did not make him any offers after the lockout. pic.twitter.com/HIBFVvBMeE
— Marly Rivera (@MarlyRiveraESPN) March 23, 2022
Apparently there was no effort made by the Astros to re-sign Correa in recent weeks, in contrast to what was heavily reported. If Correa is telling the truth, and I believe he is, then all the noise about the Astros making Correa another offer were false.
Astros have stepped up efforts to bring back Carlos Correa to the point where owner team owner Jim Crane is involved. Astros are clearly serious but other teams are still involved. @hgomez27 mentioned intensifying talks
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 14, 2022
It certainly sounds like the reports about the Astros sending Correa a revised contract offer were bogus, and possibly coming from Correa's agent, Scott Boras. And this makes so much sense on every level. If Boras was trying to get every penny he could for Correa, using the Astros as leverage is just good business. Unfortunately, Astros fans got their hopes up for nothing.
The Astros ghosted Carlos Correa this week. James Click said he would get back to them and never did and Jim Crane did not respond at all to Scott Boras’ texts.
— John Granato (@johngranato) March 19, 2022
Plus, it makes the tweet from ESPN Houston's John Granato's look even more accurate. The Astros made their final offer before the lockout and that was that. Correa preferred the offer from Minnesota, and he took it. This also explains why Jim Crane might have been a little put off. With all these false reports floating around, Crane had to have thought they were coming from Correa's camp in an effort to get Carlos more money elsewhere.
Baseball is a business. Period.
Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.
Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.
“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”
Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.
“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”
The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.
“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”
A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.
Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”
“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”