Carlos Correa on Mets, Giants free-agency fallout: ‘Is this a joke’

Carlos Correa opened up about his whirlwind free agency to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic after signing with the Minnesota Twins.

Carlos Correa ended up back where his 2022 season ended — the Minnesota Twins. How he got there, however, wasn’t so simple.

Correa, of course, signed with the San Francisco Giants and then New York Mets, but didn’t pass his physical on either occasion, thus holding up said contracts. Eventually, he agreed to a new deal with Minnesota for six years and $200 million, and subsequent options for several years thereafter.

Carlos Correa discusses free agency in detail

In his first interview since this chaos took place, Correa discussed what went wrong, and how he felt about the entire process, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription required) :

"“My body has been feeling great. I did a physical before going to free agency last year. I did a physical before signing with the Twins. And I did an exit physical with the Twins. I didn’t think there was going to be a problem. I was 100 percent confident this was going to go through.At that moment, everything felt slow. Everything felt like, ‘Is this real? Is this a dream? Is this a joke?’ But it was real. From then on, we had to deal with a lot of things.”"

Correa revealed that most of the concern around his ankle was in the long-term future, rather than the present. While he hasn’t had a problem with it to this point, it was impossible to prove it wouldn’t be an issue in the 10-plus years both teams would commit to him.

The Mets used the same ankle specialist as the Giants, which only complicated measures. Despite Correa having his own independent doctor clear him, it wasn’t enough…until the Twins came calling.

Correa is grateful the entire ordeal is done with. Now, he’s a Twin for potentially the rest of his baseball career.