Here's how the Twins landed Correa ... again

MINNEAPOLIS -- It wasn’t the first deal to which Carlos Correa agreed this offseason -- but it was the last one, and the one that stuck. And as far as the Twins are concerned, that’s all that matters.

When Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey first learned, nearly a month ago, that Correa had agreed to a megadeal with the San Francisco Giants, he called the shortstop to share a heartfelt, emotional farewell. Correa had a bigger deal lined up in the Bay Area -- one that didn’t align with the Twins’ capabilities -- but as they spoke, it seemed clear to Falvey that much of Correa’s heart still lingered with the Minnesota organization.

Call it luck, call it fate, call it the most absurd free-agent saga in the sport -- but at the end, Correa will be a member of the Twins for the long term, signed (with a completed physical) to a six-year, $200 million deal, with the potential to stretch to 10 years and $270 million with vesting years and contract options.

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“Sometimes in baseball, as in life and everywhere else, fate and destiny come back together and there’s an opportunity that you don’t always expect,” Falvey said. “The journeys are not always linear. They’re circuitous sometimes, but they’re here and they bring us back together to the place where we knew was always right for Carlos.”

How on earth did the Twins, of all teams, emerge from this chaos with the superstar shortstop for a second straight year?

It all starts back in the earliest bidding for Correa, when the Twins lined up alongside deeper-pocketed bidders, facing a blank slate for the shortstop’s services. Their best offer, 10 years for a reported $285 million, was ultimately well short of the 13 years and $350 million to which Correa and the Giants initially agreed on Dec. 13 -- but, crucially, it showed superagent Scott Boras that Twins ownership was serious about taking on a long-term commitment.

“To their credit, they got into that realm,” Boras said. “Did they get to the top of it? No. But they got into it. And that was always in the back of my mind, because that illustrated to me that Minnesota is ready. They have that perception. Ownership is committed to where they went. That's what allowed me to really take Derek's interest to the level where I knew that he had the ability to achieve an objective in a very complicated situation.”

That was important because, as Boras emphasized several times on Wednesday, Correa and his family had a “narrow list” of teams they wanted to consider -- and the Twins were on that list. That became ever clearer to Falvey when he made the aforementioned call to bid Correa farewell.

But, as the baseball world witnessed together, the Dec. 20 press conference that the Giants originally scheduled to introduce Correa was abruptly canceled when, as Boras put it, the MRI of Correa’s surgically repaired right ankle -- stemming from a fracture on June 21, 2014, in a Minor League game -- emerged as a possible point of disagreement in long-term risk evaluation.

Falvey was at Target Field leading the Twins’ introductory press conference for Joey Gallo, totally unaware that the Giants and Correa had hit a snag. When Falvey caught up, he was able to connect for a brief chat with Boras later that day, but he expressed the need for some time to process the information, regroup and chat with both team physician Chris Camp and club ownership.

The magnitude of any possible deal for Correa was one factor in that. Another reason was that the Twins, having known Correa’s physical condition for the previous year, were initially caught off guard that the ankle could have emerged as a barrier to a deal, Falvey said.

But they didn’t get that time to reassess, because Mets owner Steve Cohen was extremely aggressive in his pursuit, Boras said -- and when Falvey woke up at around 6:15 the next morning, he had a text from the agent waiting on his phone: “Derek, he’s signing elsewhere. Thanks for your thoughts earlier.”

“The Twins never had a chance to even enter into the process, because the Mets jumped into it aggressively within hours to sign the player,” Boras said.

That was Dec. 21, and though Cohen even went so far as to give on-the-record comments to the New York Post about the Mets’ need for Correa despite the deal not yet being final, that, too, hit a snag due to medical disagreements, Boras said -- and the agent didn’t like the direction the Mets were heading with their contract language.

“It was an agenda where they felt that they could move a negotiation to a different place,” Boras said. “Once a team starts taking that direction, for me, then I'm moving to the next one, to a deal that's consistent with rules, consistent with contract behavior, consistent with guarantees, all the things.”

So, just after Christmas, Falvey and the Twins reached back out, understanding that something must still be wrong because Correa hadn’t signed, simply to express the notion that they were always available to talk. Boras made sure Camp and the Twins had the medical updates, and Camp, being an orthopedist who had the most recent relevant experience with Correa, got a review in place with Twins leadership.

“Dr. Camp [had been] telling me that I’m in outstanding shape -- even better than last year, he told me so,” Correa said of his interactions with the team physician before this process began.

Boras said he had interest from five or six teams as negotiations with the Mets dragged -- but he honed in his greatest focus on the Twins, he said, due to their presence on Correa’s narrow list, his comfort in working with them and his knowledge of the Twins’ respect for Correa’s leadership, which could play into their desire to keep him around for years beyond the first six.

About a week ago, Boras reached out to Falvey and asked for a “very serious dynamic” about getting a deal done, and Falvey said that the pair spoke every day for the last week to 10 days leading up to the agreement -- though he didn’t necessarily feel that the conversations were progressing in that time.

Then, a text and call he received from Boras while sledding with his kids over the weekend led to a renewed round of exchanges on Monday with much more concrete progress. Falvey didn’t necessarily know what to expect throughout the process and had no idea where the Twins stood, with the aggressive Mets lurking.

But on Monday afternoon, Falvey allowed himself to start getting hope when a counteroffer from Boras brought the sides closer together. Monday night, they got to a deal. On Tuesday morning, the Correa family boarded a plane to Minneapolis, terms of the agreement leaked to media and Correa underwent his physical -- and it's a good thing that happened before the Federal Aviation Administration grounded every flight in the country on Wednesday morning.

And at the end of all that, Correa is back in Minneapolis -- for good, this time.

“When he was asked the question, 'Are we his third choice?'” Falvey said. “He's a human being, who was offered a lot of money a couple of different times. We can all sit here and say things like, 'It's your first choice, second choice, third choice.' I can tell you when I had that call with him that night when he originally agreed with San Francisco, it was emotional for both of us. He cared about this place.

“There are parameters sometimes that don't work for us that might work for others, and ultimately, that's part of our business. But he's human when those things go through. But he never lost track of, 'If the Twins could be a part of this or get there, what could this look like?' We finally found a time where that would work out.”