Correa discusses '22 season, future with Twins

CHICAGO -- Carlos Correa watched Wednesday’s season finale from the top rail of the visitors’ dugout at Guaranteed Rate Field, his 2022 season complete. He’d done all he could for this team -- especially down the stretch -- but due to an almost unbelievable pile-up of injuries and early pitching struggles out of his control, the Twins weren’t playing meaningful baseball when they finished out the season with a 10-1 victory over the White Sox.

Minnesota has much soul-searching to do as this offseason begins. This rash of injuries -- could the team have done anything to prevent that, and thus, another stunning plummet from tied atop the division on Sept. 4 to a 14-game deficit? Is there a meaningful trend to the organization’s recent acquisitions of soon-to-be-injured pitchers? How much turnover will there be on the coaching staff?

But perhaps the biggest question of all: Have we seen the last of Correa in a Twins uniform?

“The decision, it’s very simple,” Correa said. “I’m going to have some conversations with the front office here and see where their headspace is and where they’re at in terms of ... I talked about marriage in terms of building a long-term relationship, and then we go from there. But we all know -- you know the game enough to know what my decision is going to be like.”

That decision to which Correa alludes is the upcoming opt-out in his three-year, $105.3 million contract, which he needs to exercise within five days of the conclusion of the World Series. Clearly, he wants a long-term commitment from an organization this offseason instead of continuing to play out his current contract year by year, and this appears the strongest indication yet that he plans to opt out.

But that doesn’t mean he wants to leave the Twins. He was firm in his insistence that he has enjoyed this year in Minnesota, and that he hoped to engage the front office in conversations about an extension in the coming weeks. He has hinted all along that’s what it’ll take, and he certainly appears open to the idea.

“I love this team. I love this organization,” Correa said. “My wife loves it here, loves it in Minnesota. Loves all the wives. She is very happy there. My wife's happiness is my happiness.

“But at the same time, I want to make sure that my son and my family are taken care of,” he added. “Hopefully, the Twins can see the player that I am, the person that I am, the passion that I have for this game and the love that I have for this game. And we can get into some serious conversations.”

The relationship has been an important one for both sides. The Twins don’t often land a player of Correa’s caliber in free agency, and he’s delivered on every front.

He finished his ‘22 season hitting .291/.366/.467 with 22 homers and 24 doubles, his highest average and on-base percentage since ‘17. His 4.4 WAR, per FanGraphs, and 5.4 WAR, per Baseball-Reference, are both tops on the Twins. His 140 wRC+, a measure of runs created adjusted for ballpark and league, is the highest among all qualified MLB shortstops and, by far, the highest in a season by any shortstop in Twins history. By bWAR, his performance this season was the third-best among all Twins shortstops, behind only Zoilo Versalles (1965) and Roy Smalley (1978).

The Twins also pointed to Correa’s performance in the clutch when they signed him. Though he struggled in high-leverage situations for much of the season and won’t be helping them in the playoffs as hoped, he showed up bigtime as the injury-riddled Twins attempted their last-gasp push in September, with Correa hitting .355/.412/.589 (a 1.001 OPS) to lead the charge in the season’s final month.

And none of that takes into account the value of Correa’s leadership and steadfast charisma in a largely young clubhouse without too many other expressive voices. He almost functions like another coach in both his on-field awareness and in the perspective he brought to rookies and veterans alike -- and especially to fellow star Byron Buxton, with whom he’s grown close this year.

"I've got a lot of time to [convince him to return], so my job is to be a bug,” Buxton said. “That's what I'm going to do. He's amazing. We wouldn't be this far without him. … You know the guy's got your back. All year long, that's the way it felt in here. That's how every guy felt. That was something that's different in here that I haven't been part of.”

This experience has been important for Correa, too. In Houston, he was one of many veterans, but in Minnesota, he’s the unquestioned leader. He’s taken many of the youngsters under his wing, taking strides as a mentor. (He’ll be hosting Jose Miranda at his home in Houston during the offseason to do conditioning and defensive work together).

And with the booing crowds and the stigma of the ‘17 Astros scandal still lurking, Correa feels that being able to show his presence in a new clubhouse has helped players around the league better understand who he is.

"A lot more people know Carlos the person, not the baseball person,” Correa said. “Now that I'm here with 25 different guys on the roster that come from different teams and have a lot of different friends around the league, they get to know me and they get to tell people how I am in the clubhouse and outside the field.

“So yeah, when I go play other teams now, it feels like people, they kind of know my vibe and they kind of know who I am. It's been a great year in terms of just going out there and talking to people and spending more time with other teams and stuff like that."

Correa remained adamant, to the very end, that had it not been for all the injuries to key players, the Twins would be playoff-bound. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli acknowledged and lamented the fact that the club might have had one year of Correa’s services and even acted aggressively to add four players at the Trade Deadline -- and didn’t get a postseason berth to show for it.

Unless this isn’t the end of the Correa era.

“He's going to have every opportunity in the world, probably, at his fingertips,” Baldelli said. “He just needs to decide what he wants exactly and what's the best situation for him.”