🤩 Carlos Correa was supposed to be Steve Cohen's Mets 'flex' on MLB

Hello fellow Mets fans and welcome to this week’s edition of Almost A Met.

Sorry for the skip last week. I’ve been dealing with a hell of a cold, and on top of that, I started a new job! (Yes, those two things happening at the same time was… something else).

Anyway, with the news that SS Carlos Correa was injured, I thought it would be fun to dive into one of the bigger “what-ifs” of the Steve Cohen era.

So strap in, and let’s see how Correa was almost a $315 million bust in Queens.

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Alright, let’s get into the Mets-Correa saga.

Andrew Wyrich

Ahead of the 2023 season, the Steve Cohen-owned Mets were flying high. It was the peak of Mets fans feeling like a whole new world was upon them. It was euphoric. It was grandiose. It was something Mets fans never felt before: Fuck you money.

For years, Mets fans had to deal with the penny-pinching Wilpon’s try and sell them a damaged set of goods. So much spring optimism was built upon “well, if everything breaks right, we can compete.”

With Cohen, that felt like a bygone era. Money was no object. No player was beyond the team’s reach.

The team has just signed Justin Verlander and Kodai Senga. Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Diaz signed mega extensions.

It was a brand new era of Mets baseball.

In a lot of ways, this new era was exemplified by the team’s pursuit of star SS Carlos Correa.

It’s not hard to see what Cohen liked in Correa. The 28-year-old free agent shortstop had accumulated 39.3 WAR over 888 games, hit 155 HRs, drove in 553 RBIs, and had an OPS+ of 129. He was known as a plus defender. He won several World Series in Houston. He was also known to be “clutch.”

Moving him to third base and adding him to a lineup of Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and Jeff McNeil would have made the team’s offense even more formidable coming off of their (disappointing) 101 win season in 2022.

While the Mets fizzled out at the end of the 2022 season and left the playoffs in a hurry, Correa was known to be a major postseason performer, with a lifetime .849 OPS in the playoffs.

He appeared, on paper, as a final piece of the puzzle.

In mid-December 2022, the Mets were described as having a “flirtation” with the free agent short stop.

However, they seemingly missed out on signing him when he inked a 13-year $350 million deal with the San Francisco Giants, who were desperate to make a big splash after they whiffed on trying to lure Yankees star Aaron Judge to the Bay Area.

In an interview with Jon Heyman of the New York Post, Cohen talked to him with a “tinge of disappointment” in his voice about not signing Correa. The Mets owner said he made a surprise call to Scott Boras, Correa’s agent, to try and sign him before he agreed to a deal with the Giants. He was told they were “already down the road” on a contract agreement.

“We got there late,” Cohen said, according to the Post.

So, that seemed to be that. The idea of adding a (expensive) cherry on top to Cohen’s lavish offseason seemed to be over. Correa was going to be a Giant.

Or was he?

In a truly stunning turn of events, the Giants cancelled a press conference where Correa was going to be introduced as the franchise’s new cornerstone player.

There appeared to be concerns about his physical. Boras said the concerns were not about the shortstop’s back, which limited him to just 75 games in 2019. When they did not meet a deadline to continue to review his medicals, Boras began talking to other clubs about his client’s availability.

Cohen was ready.

Boras and Cohen spoke for “four or five hours” while the Mets owner was enjoying dinner and martini’s in Hawaii, according to Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci. Boras, known for his puns, reportedly asked Cohen: “Do you have three olives for a third baseman?”

At 3:15 a.m. ET, the Mets and Correa agreed to a 12-year $315 million deal.

When the Mets initially entered the Correa sweepstakes, they had hoped to sign the shortstop for around $300 million, but when the final number ended up being a bit higher, it didn’t seem to phase Cohen.

“In the end, what the [heck’s] the difference. If you’re trying to make a move, you make the move,” Cohen told the New York Post from Hawaii. “If it’s [a few percent] more, what’s the difference?”

In Cohen’s words, Correa was the piece that the Mets needed to wash away the disappointment of 2022.

“We needed one more thing, and this is it,” he told the Post. “This really makes a big difference … I feel like our pitching was in good shape. We needed one more hitter. This puts us over the top.”

Cohen’s late-night swoop to acquire the free agent star was lauded.

• Mike Vaccaro of the Post said, the Correa deal “takes your breath away.”

• Fox Sports called the deal “the biggest flex yet” by Cohen.

• The New York Times called the deal the “ultimate luxury.”

• New York Magazine called the deal “Steve Cohen’s midnight miracle.”

But… Carlos Correa is an Almost A Met.

So what happened?

Clearly, there was palpable excitement about Correa coming to Queens. Correa even posted a photo of his son wearing a T-shirt that spelled out “I heart NY” in a hot dog and pretzel.

But while the deal was announced, it was never made official. For two weeks, speculation brewed on what was going on. In fact, Cohen had liked a few tweets about the Mets and Correa that raised some eyebrows.

Soon enough, it became clear that the Mets had similar concerns about Correa’s physical that the Giants did, leaving the deal in limbo. The Post reported that the Mets scrambled for two weeks to “forge a deal both Correa and the Mets could live with.”

Some of those provisions reportedly would have included fewer guaranteed dollars than what he would ultimately get from the Minnesota Twins, and also annual physicals with the Mets.

The Mets revised deal guaranteed six years at $157.5 million, according to the Post, but had conditions Correa’s team found “difficult to reach” including plate appearances and time on the field. The Mets saw “significant risk” in the later years of his contract.

Correa signed a significantly smaller deal to remain with the Twins, agreeing to a 6-year deal with several option years for a guaranteed $200 million that could boost up to $270 million.

Talk about a whirlwind.

After resigning in Minnesota, Correa was good — but never the player he was. In 2023, he his just .230 with 18 HRs and 65 RBIs. He followed that up in 2024 with a .310 batting average along with 14 HRs and 54 RBIs.

But crucially, both of those years were marred with injuries. Over both years, plantar fasciitis in both feet caused him to miss time.

At the 2025 trade deadline, Correa was — somewhat stunningly — traded back to Houston, with the Twins sending $33 million to cover part of his remaining contract.

As I mentioned in the intro, Correa was injured again earlier this week and will miss the remainder of this season.

Meanwhile, the 2023 Mets bottomed out, finishing 75-87 and missing the playoffs. That ushered in the David Stearns era.

It’s hard to imagine how Correa’s poor performance, injuries, and monster contract would have been anything but a nightmare for the Mets during that season (and beyond).

So while we may have memories of being a financial behemoth that should have been feared across the sport, this is clearly an instance where the Mets dodged a bullet.

Can you imagine that contract on the current Mets right now? Yikes.

Refer a friend

Would you have signed Correa to a 12-year $315 million deal?

Next newsletter we’ll share the results of the poll! So stay tuned.

Last newsletter’s answers: It was unanimous! 100% of Almost A Met readers said they would have hired Kim Ng instead of Brodie Van Wagenen.

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🟠 Could Carson Benge win a Gold Glove as a rookie? (Drew Van Buskirk / Just Mets)

🔵 (Not Mets related… but maybe soon?) Maybe the new-manager bounce is real after all ( Neil Paine / Neil’s Substack )

🟠 Waiting for Brett Baty’s power to arrive (Brian Joura / Mets360)