Thursday BP: Giants handled Correa fiasco in most unprofessional way imaginable

Good morning, baseball fans.

I don’t know about you, but my head is still spinning from all of the news that has been coming out about just how profoundly the San Francisco Giants botched their highly celebrated, and ultimately doomed deal with Carlos Correa.

There are, of course, two sides to every story, but so far the Giants have been extremely tight-lipped on their end. Meanwhile, each account that has come out from others about how the organization mishandled the whole situation is more damning than the last.

There are reports that the medical issue that caused the Giants to push pause on the deal was something that predated Correa’s MLB career. Reportedly an ankle injury from his minor league tenure. There are several issues with this.

Firstly, the organizational hypocrisy. Which was pointed out by many people throughout the day yesterday, noting that an ankle injury to Buster Posey in 2011 didn’t stop them from offering him a nine-year contract. Not a decade later, but after the following season.

Secondly, this would have been information that Pete Putila, the Giants’ new General Manager, would have already known about prior to the original agreement being made due to his time in the Houston Astros organization. So it’s hard to believe that this could have possibly been brand new information on Monday.

Meanwhile, the ankle injury was not something that stopped the Minnesota Twins, his most recent employers (who would also have had a good deal more information about his medical history), from offering him 10 years.

Nor did any potentially concerning medical information stop the New York Mets from swooping in with a slightly shorter deal than the Giants offered once they ostensibly backed out. Meaning that Correa and Scott Boras were willing to work on the deal after said concerns were brought up. The Giants didn’t try.

That’s according to Boras himself who said that after the press conference was called off, he gave them a clear and reasonable time frame to work something out and got crickets from the organization. He then made it clear that they would begin negotiations with other teams if the Giants didn’t execute the agreement, and reportedly received a response of “Fine.”

And then there was the report that Correa was dressed and ready to head to his media appearances Tuesday morning before they were postponed. I’m not 100% certain if that was the case, as it sounds as though Boras was informed the night before, but it was noted in initial reporting from Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci.

If true, this shows a lack of consideration or communication on the part of the Giants.

Another aspect of the lack of communication on all fronts is that Correa was willing to switch to third base for the Mets, who have Francisco Lindor on a lengthy contract of his own. Something the Giants didn’t even bother asking him to do. They instead chose to let Brandon Crawford, a long time fan favorite player, know after the fact that he’d be unceremoniously dumped from the position he’d played in every year of a very accomplished career.

(Note on that, Correa is friends with Lindor and that could have impacted his decision to switch positions. But the way they bungled the communication with Crawford stands regardless.)

Why should any free agent ever want to sign with an organization that could back out at any moment? Especially over something that was trivial enough to barely make an impact in renegotiations with other teams? Who would want to sign up to be treated so callously? What could the current players think of playing for an organization that conducts itself this way?

That last one we can partially answer. This tweet from Kevin Gausman (retweeted by Logan Webb) should tell you how some players are feeling about at least the perception of how the organization handles its business:

This was followed by a tweet reply from Webb with a gif that says “Can I get an Amen?” I think it’s fairly safe to say that some of the players are not too happy.

It’s still early and there aren’t a lot of details from the Giants’ perspective. However, I find it difficult to believe that this has anything to do with Farhan Zaidi or the front office. I find it much more likely that this is on at least parts of the ownership group.

I say parts, because as Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic points out in his incredibly damning report, even members of the ownership group were completely in the dark as all of this was playing out. Which leads many to believe that, despite the best efforts of everyone else involved to get this deal done, the decision to back out likely came from the very top of even that group.

Why would anyone want to work for an organization that would undermine their efforts in such a profound way?

Information may come out that might seem to give “justification” (read: excuses) for this decision, but ultimately I don’t think I can be convinced that it wasn’t someone at the top of the ownership group deciding that maybe spending money on baseball players instead of real estate wasn’t what they wanted to do after all.

They got cold feet and found that their only way out was through the medical history, so they latched onto whatever they could to “justify” backing out of the deal in the most unprofessional way possible. It’s shameful, pathetic behavior. Whoever made the call to pull out of the deal is not up to the task of being the person with the ability to make that call.

Everyone in the sports world is laughing at them and they are right to do so. Every baseball player in the world has every right to be wary of the organization. And the fans are right to be angry.

As Grant Brisbee says in his analysis of this disaster over on The Athletic:

“The Giants needed to buy goodwill with fans this offseason. They poured gas on whatever goodwill was left and set it on fire.”

Remember this next season when there’s handwringing about the empty ballpark, or complaints about how free agents don’t want to sign with the Giants because of San Francisco politics. Remember that they did this to themselves.

Regardless of how you feel about the terms of the Correa deal that ultimately fell through, this will have far-reaching implications and repercussions for the franchise as a whole for a long time to come.