A Discussion on Carlos Correa's Free Agency (Plus Some Elaborations)

Over at The Crawfish Boxes, I participated on a site discussion about the Astros’ attempts to re-sign Carlos Correa. You should go check it out! And when you’re done, I have a few more thoughts over here, expanding on my part.


One thing that I mentioned was the idea that it’s better for team building to rely on one star rather than multiple players. It’s pretty generalized, but the example I included does a good job with it: one player worth 5 Wins Above Replacement is more valuable than two 2.5-WAR players, for the same reason those two players are better than five 1-WAR players.

Because it’s not just the one 5-WAR player you’re getting in the first scenario; you still have to fill those other roster spots that the two-player and five-player options. There’s no option to just run a 24-man or 22-man roster. And if you’ve done your job right, those other roster spots should be worth more than 0 Wins, so the actual trade-off is 2.5+2.5 versus 5+(something else).

Of course, the catch here is all hypothetical and cost-independent. When teams have managed to circumvent this, it’s been by more efficiently allocating the same resources. To provide another oversimplified example, if the team that goes for the 5-WAR player doesn’t know what they’re doing and does get a 0-Win player as back-up, while the 2.5-WAR players have higher ceilings (maybe they’re coming back from injury, or have untapped potential or something, so the 2.5 estimate is inaccurate). Of course, that’s a trade-off that will depend heavily on the specifics.

That’s part of the problem with the shortstop question here. We don’t really know the cost specifics yet. Free agent negotiations are complicated. Carlos Correa might want a Lindor-size deal, like Cody reported in the original article, but he’s not the only party deciding this. Another team has to decide to give him that, and while there are other teams trying to sign him to bid the eventual winner up, there are also plenty of other shortstop options for those other teams to consider this winter, including Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Trevor Story, and Javier Báez. And of course, we largely aren’t going to be privy to any of these processes.

We are dealing with a lot of unknown variables here*, which is why I tend to retreat to the abstracts for now. Or, like I pose during the article itself, it’s especially easy to say “I don’t want Correa Correa at $300 million over ten years, let’s just sign Trevor Story instead” when you don’t actually know what the market for Story is. We can make guesses, like maybe Story will sign for below-market because of his 2021 season, but there might be multiple teams who have that same thought and bid him up anyway (especially if all of them think he’ll bounce back, which might in turn improve his ask).

*And none of this is even getting into whatever changes to the game’s financial structures the new CBA institutes. I’ll be working with what’s in place when necessary for lack of a better option, but the main balance I’ll be getting at is the balance of Player Value versus Dollars Spent, which should be relatively unaffected by any changes.

So, as an outside observer with few specifics, I tend to go with the broadest case; sign the best player you can. In that regard, Seager (who’s a year older) is the only one who matches Correa in peak and age, even with both of their injury concerns. Semien has matched their peaks, especially recently, but he’s four years older than Correa, so any deal for him will be missing out on his ages 27 through 30 seasons and likely comes with more risk as a result. Story and Baez are both two seasons older (so again, you’re losing two peak seasons to work with), and you need to contend with their own questions (Story’s downturn last year, Baez’s lack of a batting eye). Maybe one of them sees their price drop as a result of those issues, maybe there’s something teams see in them that make their specific risks manageable, but again it’s hard to know all of that right now.

And for my final point of the article, there really isn’t anyone like Correa or Seager for the next few years. I had to do a brief scan in real time to keep up with the discussion, but even with more time to go over it, the pickings look pretty slim. Here’s the 2022-23 Free Agent Class; the only players with recent MVP-level performance (leaving aside the players with options, since those will likely be picked up) are Trea Turner and Aaron Judge. Turner as a free agent will be three years older than Correa as a free agent, so you’re again missing out on three peak seasons in whatever deal he signs (in addition to not having a star in his spot for the 2022 season). Judge is a year older than Turner.

The next year is a stronger class, but there isn’t a clear better choice. José Ramírez and Matt Chapman are the most obvious picks, but they’ll be coming off their age thirty seasons (so again, you’re missing out on four years in your deal and forgoing a star for the next two seasons). Cody Bellinger will be 27, but has… whatever has been his issue for the last two seasons; even if he returns to MVP-form, I’d find this two-year valley much more worrisome than Correa or Seager’s injuries. Maybe Manny Machado will opt out of his deal following his age-30 season, but I certainly wouldn’t be putting all my eggs in that basket this early.

(I guess if you make it to 2025, you have a shot at 26-year-old Juan Soto, but even then, you’re gambling on the Nationals not locking him up before then, on top of all other uncertainty that comes with being a free agent deal that will not be starting until four seasons from now. And for the Astros, at that point, Kyle Tucker and Yordan Álvarez’s free agencies will be looming in the next winter, although Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman’s deals will be coming off the books at that point as well.)

As I said in the piece, if it makes you feel better, you can think of it as an incentive to spend on Correa now; there are no stars like him the next few years, no one to worry about missing out on in the meantime. Absent the specifics of the negotiations (a big asterisk, to be sure), there’s no reason not to be trying hard to lock him up right now.

Buster Posey's Retirement Accentuates the Fast-Shrinking Number of 2000s Players

I knew there were going to be a lot of shocking moves this winter, but I certainly didn’t predict Buster Posey retiring on the first official day of the offseason. The former MVP was set to start his thirteenth season next year just after his 35th birthday, but the longtime Giants catcher instead decided to turn down the option year on his contract, even after San Francisco picked it up. It’s especially surprising given how strong his 2021 season was (particularly after sitting out the 2020 campaign) but there’s something to be said for going out on a high note.

But perhaps the most surprising aspect, for me at least, was realizing that Posey was part of a dying breed: players who debuted in the 2000s.* Technically, Posey only played in seven games in the 2009 season, but it counts, and we need all the help we can get in this category. It doesn’t feel like it should be that rare quite yet; it wasn’t that long ago.

*“2000s” here refers to the first decade after 2000, which doesn’t have as clear a name as the 2010s or 2020s. Thus, I’ll just be sticking with “2000s” or “‘00s” for this piece.

And yet, as of 2021, MLB is already down in the double digits when it comes to players from the ‘00s who received any playing time. That feels a little shocking, right? I’m not alone here? We aren’t that far into the following decade yet, it’s still only 2021. This seemed like it was something worth looking into. After all, I have experience here; I wrote something a few years ago looking at who would be the final player from the 1990s (that answer ended up being a tie between Adrian Beltre and Bartolo Colon, by the way; both of them made it to 2018 in the Majors, although Colon continues playing internationally). How does the situation now compare to what I saw then?

I’ll need to do some adjusting, of course, since my last piece was in 2014, closer to the middle of the decade. But our 2021 total still feels abnormally low; going by a search on Baseball-Reference, there are only 75 active players who debuted in the 2000s. And even that feels like a generous ruling, given that the search turns up players who didn’t play in 2021 for a variety of reasons (including injuries like Justin Verlander and Cole Hamels, players who sat out like Homer Bailey and Chris Davis, as well as the suspended Robinson Cano). Even if you expand the search to include players who retired during the 2021 season but were active at some point, you pick up Jordan Zimmermann (2 games with the Brewers) and Jay Bruce (10 games with the Yankees), but that still only brings us to 77 ‘00s players in the 2021 season.

In comparison, there were still over 100 players from the 1990s still active for the 2011 season: 105 just counting players who debuted in 1990 or later, plus 1980s debuts Jamie Moyer and Omar Vizquel, who both lasted until the 2012 season. So it’s not just my memory, we do appear to be losing 2000s players faster than we did 1990s players (and 1980s ones, apparently?).

New Sporcle Quiz (Best Active Players Without a World Series 2021 Edition), Plus Bonus Trivia!

The 2021 World Series has concluded, meaning that I can publish the newest edition of my annual Sporcle series, Best Active Players Without a World Series. I’ll have a little bit more below the break, but I want to give everyone a chance to try it without any spoilers first. I’m also including a link to my other recent World Series-related quizzes for those who missed them, as well as a newly-created playlist containing all past versions of my Best Active Players series for anyone who wants to see how it’s evolved over the years (and also has some time to kill; this year is my eighth entry onto the list, with every season but 2015 accounted for):


Best Active Players without a World Series, 2021 Edition
Expansion Teams by World Series Performance
World Series Matchup Grid

World Series Matchup Grid (Hard Mode)

Full Best Active Player without a World Series Playlist


(Also, for those who want to hunt for extras, there are five bonus answers on the quiz, all players who are technically active, but who didn’t play on a Major League roster in 2021. Good luck, and make sure to come back here after for some more fun facts!)