Well this news literally broke the Internet at my house this morning. Computer stopped working and been busy all day replacing it.
Twelve hours later, my takeaway steals from the movie "The Social Network" where during the deposition of Mark Zuckerberg, he tells the Winklevoss Twins, "If you were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook."
Kind of how I feel about Carlos Correa right now. If he wanted to play for the Houston Astros, he would be a Houston Astro right now.
I'm not going to repeat what 50 other people have said today, but clearly he didn't get the mega deal from a team he wanted, so he took the next best thing, the deal that at a bare minimum gets him $135 million over 3 years, but also lets him bail after Year 1 or Year 2 for greener pastures if he so chooses.
Could the Astros have given him that same deal? Of course. But for once, I'm on the team's side of things for not doing it.
Why? Because no one player should be the bigger than the team, unless that player is on par with Michael Jordan and Tom Brady.
Carlos Correa is not bigger than the rest of the Astros, but if you sign him to that deal where he can control his own destiny every single year, that's the message you're sending. The rest of you multi-millionaires, you're under our control for 4-6 years as we pay you hundreds of millions, but not Carlos! Carlos gets to do whatever he wants to after every season. Maybe we're so lucky that he'll pick us again next year, but maybe he won't, and then we'll either have to restructure the deal to pay him even more money, or lose him, and the entire season will be filled with speculation of will he stay or will he go.
That's some weak sauce, assuming you aren't Brady or Jordan. That's telling Tucker and Bregman and Yordan and Altuve - you're all really great, but Carlos is better than any of you and deserves to be treated like baseball royalty.
Carlos is still young - he won't be 28 until almost the end of the season - and has shown more durability here lately than in previous seasons. He only missed 2 games in the mini-2020 season, and only missed 14 in 2021. Every Astro fan will miss his defense terribly, and his post-season hitting as well. He'll be our best shortstop of all time, and those of us pushing 50 might never see another Astro shortstop that even approaches his talent level. That sucks, but that's baseball.
More than anything, today makes me think about when Albert Pujols bolted St. Louis for Anaheim, 100% a money decision. The Cardinals offered him 8 years, $200 million, the Angels upped it to 10 years, $240 million. That was in 2011. In his time in St. Louis, the Cardinals won the World Series twice and made the playoffs seven times in 11 seasons.
When he left, their owner said that no one player was bigger than the Cardinals, and they would keep on putting together great teams and playing for the people of St. Louis. And they did, they made it back to the NLCS the next year, lost the World Series in 2013, and have made the playoffs 7 times in the 10 seasons without Pujols.
Of course, as Astro fans, we all know what Pujols' financial decision has cost him. He played in 3 playoff games in 10 years in Anaheim, all three losses in 2014. It took him getting released and then signing with the Dodgers to get back to the league championships series for the first time.
Granted, Pujols is not Correa. he was 32 (and possibly older) when he left for Anaheim, and his numbers were only "really good" not all-time famous like they had been in the NL. Carlos is likely still in his prime and barring injuries should be due a few more really great years. But the odds are those years will come without the long Octobers and the adulation as one of the greatest clutch players in MLB playoff history. He's cast his lot as a guy who wants the most money, not the best shot to win another ring.
The Astros are bigger than that.
Twelve hours later, my takeaway steals from the movie "The Social Network" where during the deposition of Mark Zuckerberg, he tells the Winklevoss Twins, "If you were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook."
Kind of how I feel about Carlos Correa right now. If he wanted to play for the Houston Astros, he would be a Houston Astro right now.
I'm not going to repeat what 50 other people have said today, but clearly he didn't get the mega deal from a team he wanted, so he took the next best thing, the deal that at a bare minimum gets him $135 million over 3 years, but also lets him bail after Year 1 or Year 2 for greener pastures if he so chooses.
Could the Astros have given him that same deal? Of course. But for once, I'm on the team's side of things for not doing it.
Why? Because no one player should be the bigger than the team, unless that player is on par with Michael Jordan and Tom Brady.
Carlos Correa is not bigger than the rest of the Astros, but if you sign him to that deal where he can control his own destiny every single year, that's the message you're sending. The rest of you multi-millionaires, you're under our control for 4-6 years as we pay you hundreds of millions, but not Carlos! Carlos gets to do whatever he wants to after every season. Maybe we're so lucky that he'll pick us again next year, but maybe he won't, and then we'll either have to restructure the deal to pay him even more money, or lose him, and the entire season will be filled with speculation of will he stay or will he go.
That's some weak sauce, assuming you aren't Brady or Jordan. That's telling Tucker and Bregman and Yordan and Altuve - you're all really great, but Carlos is better than any of you and deserves to be treated like baseball royalty.
Carlos is still young - he won't be 28 until almost the end of the season - and has shown more durability here lately than in previous seasons. He only missed 2 games in the mini-2020 season, and only missed 14 in 2021. Every Astro fan will miss his defense terribly, and his post-season hitting as well. He'll be our best shortstop of all time, and those of us pushing 50 might never see another Astro shortstop that even approaches his talent level. That sucks, but that's baseball.
More than anything, today makes me think about when Albert Pujols bolted St. Louis for Anaheim, 100% a money decision. The Cardinals offered him 8 years, $200 million, the Angels upped it to 10 years, $240 million. That was in 2011. In his time in St. Louis, the Cardinals won the World Series twice and made the playoffs seven times in 11 seasons.
When he left, their owner said that no one player was bigger than the Cardinals, and they would keep on putting together great teams and playing for the people of St. Louis. And they did, they made it back to the NLCS the next year, lost the World Series in 2013, and have made the playoffs 7 times in the 10 seasons without Pujols.
Of course, as Astro fans, we all know what Pujols' financial decision has cost him. He played in 3 playoff games in 10 years in Anaheim, all three losses in 2014. It took him getting released and then signing with the Dodgers to get back to the league championships series for the first time.
Granted, Pujols is not Correa. he was 32 (and possibly older) when he left for Anaheim, and his numbers were only "really good" not all-time famous like they had been in the NL. Carlos is likely still in his prime and barring injuries should be due a few more really great years. But the odds are those years will come without the long Octobers and the adulation as one of the greatest clutch players in MLB playoff history. He's cast his lot as a guy who wants the most money, not the best shot to win another ring.
The Astros are bigger than that.
