Most Giants fans went to bed Tuesday morning thinking Carlos Correa’s postponed press conference was just a last-second hold up to 13 years of a franchise shortstop. The night owls might have heard the news before midnight, but the Bay Area awoke Wednesday to the shocking news that Correa had negotiated a 12-year, $315 million deal with the New York Mets, after a flagged physical with the Giants.
NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic joined 95.7 The Game’s “The Morning Roast” Wenesday to try and explain the magnitude of the Giants’ swing and miss on Correa. Just six days earlier, Correa reportedly agreed to a 13-year, $350 million contract with San Francisco.
“I think this is embarrassing,” Pavlovic told hosts Bonta Hill and Joe Shasky. “This is beyond anything. This is something we haven’t seen before. We’ve seen this on a minor scale with some other contracts. There was a string of the Orioles a few years ago, where every year someone failed a physical. But those were minor deals. This has never happened in baseball history on this scale. It’s never happened where a team watches a guy just go to another team in a span of 24 hours. This puts a lot of pressure on them and I think there’s gonna be a lot of pressure next season to win. There are no obvious answers really here in how they can kinda turn this around in a way that Judge or Correa could have.”
The Giants have spent $93.5 million this offseason on free-agent outfielder Mitch Haniger (three years, $43.5 million), right-hander Ross Stripling (two years, $25 million) and southpaw Sean Manaea (two years, $25 million). Those type of moves won’t exactly move the needle for the middling franchise with a disheartened fan base. Especially when the Giants struck out on high-profile free agents like Correa, Aaron Judge and Brandon Nimmo this winter.
“They promised that they were gonna go big this offseason, they did go big this offseason and now it’s blown up in their face,” Pavlovic said. “Now it looks like a very middle-of-the-road or below offseason. This looks like a team that isn’t better than it was last season, when they finished .500. I do think they set expectations themselves. This was also the media, this was also the fans, but this was also the Giants. They did not shy away from the fact they were gonna go after Aaron Judge. They did not shy away from the fact that they were gonna go after that big shortstop class. They didn’t shy away from the fact they had a lot of money to spend.”
So, does this debacle mean that Farhan Zaidi’s officially on the hot seat?
“I think everyone’s seat gets warmer, including him,” Pavlovic said. “The 107-win season was incredible. It’s one of the best things that happened to this franchise, but other than that, this is a franchise right now that is in some trouble. I think you just look at the record the last few years, and you look at the record last year. The farm system is now where they want it to be, that’s a fact. It just hasn't improved to the point that they liked.”
Just three weeks after the Giants open the season against Judge and the Yankees, Correa and the Mets will play in San Francisco for a four-game at Oracle Park beginning on April 20.
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