HOUSTON — Every offseason, Carlos Correa organizes a game night. Some of his closest friends gather at his Houston home for fellowship and maybe some fierce competition.
A new attendee this winter brought Correa’s career full circle. Correa met Jeremy Peña during his final season with the Houston Astros and helped groom him as his heir apparent, but the two men never got much closer than that.
This offseason, though, the two shortstops started training together, a partnership Peña credits for a breakout season that has put him on the precipice of superstardom. Part of their bond included Correa inviting Peña to play some games.
“We had a great time,” Correa told The Athletic on Thursday night. “We’re great friends. We’ve built a great relationship.”
Now, after a transformational trade on Thursday afternoon, the two men are teammates. Peña is expected to be activated off the injured list and start at shortstop on Friday night at Fenway Park. To his right could be Correa, the man he once replaced at shortstop and with whom he will now share the left side of the infield.
Correa’s stunning return to Houston is another accentuation of owner Jim Crane’s aggression at the trade deadline and a jolt for a clubhouse that needed it. The Astros and their depth-starved lineup lost 12 of the 19 games that preceded the deadline, finally succumbing to the weight of a major-league high 17 players residing on the injured list.
General manager Dana Brown entered the trade deadline “prioritizing the bats” to reinforce an offense missing five of the nine players from its Opening Day lineup. Other hitters with more encouraging statistics or lower salaries were available, but none had Correa’s cachet or contagious presence.
“He (will) give our clubhouse a charge, give the city a charge,” Brown said on Thursday.
A seller’s market meant trouble for an Astros team that, according to Baseball America’s most recent update, has zero top-100 prospects. Infielder Brice Matthews is still among MLB Pipeline’s top 100, but it’s difficult to envision Brown parting with the first draft pick of his tenure as Houston’s general manager.
“That was probably part of the reason we didn’t do much more on the pitching side,” Brown said. “We thought some of the prices were high. We didn’t want to mortgage the future. Pound what we could pound with the bats and allow what we have coming back from the pitching side to be a part of it.”
In lieu of mortgaging the future, Crane absorbed all but $30 million of Correa’s contract. To acquire Jesús Sánchez, Houston did part with touted infield prospect Chase Jaworsky, whom The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked No. 7 in his preseason organizational rankings, but otherwise kept its precious few top-end prospects within the organization.
Sánchez profiles as a left-handed hitting platoon partner with rookie Cam Smith in right field. Starting Sánchez against most righties makes sense with the roster in its current state. At full strength, though, Smith will continue to get a majority of the playing time.
Finding a more permanent lineup fixture felt mandatory. Finding one with an .860 OPS across 358 postseason plate appearances only sweetened the deal.
“I always try to operate in the present and in the future because our philosophy here, led by Jim Crane, is that the window is always open,” Brown said. “We laid focus on that.”
Crane’s influence in completing the trade for Correa can’t be overstated, nor can the Minnesota Twins’ state of flux. A salary dump onto an owner willing to take it — and for the only team Correa would waive his no-trade clause to join — created one of the wildest days during a golden era Correa helped produce.
“I’m very excited to play with this group of guys that I know, to try to win championships every year,” Correa said.
Correa is not the dominant player who departed Houston after the 2021 season. According to Baseball Reference, he finished a 450-game Twins career worth 10.4 wins above replacement. He was worth 7.3 in his final season as an Astro, part of a 34-bWAR career that already cemented him as one of the franchise’s most consequential players.
Injuries hampered Correa in Minnesota, even until his final days. Correa left Tuesday’s game with a migraine and did not start on Wednesday while undergoing imaging for issues related to the headaches. Asked on Thursday how he felt physically, Correa said, “Great. Perfect. In a great spot.”
Carlos Correa left the game, but avoided a serious injury after Tommy Pham slid into his right ankle on July 11. (David Berding / Getty Images)
While with the Twins, Correa spent time on the injured list due to oblique and foot injuries. Both the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets had agreed to sign him for $300 million, only to back out due to concerns about his surgically repaired right ankle.
“This year, he’s been posting, so we feel good about that,” Brown said of Correa, who appeared in 93 of the Twins’ first 108 games, but with just a 92 OPS+ and .386 slugging percentage. Correa’s 29.8 percent chase rate is his highest in a 162-game season since his rookie year.
Correa has become susceptible to sliders, hitting .184 with a 40.2 percent whiff rate against a pitch he pounded in 2024. Correa hit .389 against sliders last season, one where he saw a higher percentage of the pitch than he is this year.
“Getting him back into a familiar ballpark, which is a hitter-friendly ballpark, and with some familiar faces and familiar coaches, we felt like we were going to get a boost from that and a boost of more energy,” Brown said.
Perhaps the change of scenery will spur Correa, who just witnessed a complete collapse in Minnesota while, along with Byron Buxton, existing as the focal point of the Twins’ lineup. He isn’t going to sneak up on anyone with the Astros, but will be surrounded by the likes of Peña, Jose Altuve and Yordan Álvarez, presuming he ever returns from a fractured right hand.
That Correa will play a new position is perhaps the least concerning aspect of this entire ordeal. His transition to third base should be seamless, especially for someone with one of the sport’s strongest throwing arms and best range.
“I’ve been asking the Twins to play third base for the last two years,” Correa said. “But it was not aligning because of how we were constructed. When (Twins general manager Derek Falvey) told me the Astros wanted me for third base, I was like, that would be perfect.”
Perfect for an Astros team with a budding superstar in Peña at shortstop, someone who learned from the man he’ll now work alongside.
(Top photo of Carlos Correa from before Game 2 of the 2021 ALCS: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
Source link
