The Twins continued a monster week of transactions by adding one of the top free agents on the market, agreeing to a three-year, $105.3 million contract with free-agent shortstop Carlos Correa, a source told MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi on Friday night.
The contract includes opt-outs after each of the first two years of the deal. The club has not confirmed the agreement.
Correa didn’t perform up to his usual standards during the shortened 2020 season but produced a huge postseason and then carried that into his contract year. He made his second All-Star team in 2021 and batted .279/.366/.485 (131 OPS+) with 26 home runs, 34 doubles, 92 RBIs and 104 runs scored.
He also shined defensively, ranking sixth among MLB shortstops in Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric (plus-12). Between his excellence with the bat and glove, Correa generated 7.2 WAR as a position player, per Baseball-Reference, edging out Marcus Semien and Juan Soto for the MLB lead.
That sort of production is nothing new for Correa. Since the start of his first full season in 2016, he ranks first among shortstops in bWAR (29.3) and fifth among all position players, trailing only Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, Nolan Arenado and José Ramírez.
The first overall pick in the 2012 Draft out of the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy, Correa shot through the Astros’ Minor League system, becoming a consensus top-five prospect before making his Major League debut on June 8, 2015 — more than three months before his 21st birthday. He was an immediate success, taking AL Rookie of the Year honors despite playing in only 99 games.
Correa’s biggest issue since then has been injuries. Big for a shortstop at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, he has dealt with a torn thumb ligament, a fractured rib and multiple bouts of back discomfort. Correa missed 192 of the Astros’ 486 games (39.5%) from 2017-19, although he played in 148 games in 2021.
Despite those setbacks, Correa has put himself in rare company to this point. His 133 career homers through his age-26 season rank fifth all-time among AL/NL shortstops, and his .277/.356/.481 batting line works out to a 127 OPS+ that ranks seventh in that group (among those with 2,000-plus plate appearances). He also has been a postseason stalwart, with his 18 homers tying for seventh on the career list and his 59 RBIs ranking sixth.