Is Carlos Correa using the Twins as leverage with Mets?

The calendar has officially turned over to a new year, but Carlos Correa still hasn’t put pen to paper on a new contract somewhere in baseball.

It’s the somewhere that has once again become important as Correa’s deal with the New York Mets is in danger of falling through just like it did with the San Francisco Giants.

And once again, the Minnesota Twins are circling below the chaos.

Late Thursday night, Jon Heyman and Greg Joyce from the New York Post reported that the Twins had been ‘in some contact’ with Correa’s agent, Scott Boras, amid the faltering deal in Queens.

“Two weeks into the discussions, the unresolved issues have at least led Correa’s agent Scott Boras to check in with other teams. The incumbent Twins, who know Correa best and offered close to $285 million over 10 years, were one of the teams in some contact with Boras,” Heyman and Joyce reported.

For what it’s worth, someone close to the Mets made sure to mentioned that Steve Cohen would essentially stop at nothing to make sure a deal happens and he isn’t burned like the Giants were.

With reports that the Twins are once again in the running to sign Correa this offseason, fans have to beg the question of whether or not Minnesota is being used as leverage — again.

MLB Rumors: Is Carlos Correa using the Twins as leverage?

All indications seem to point toward that being the fact the first time around.

Minnesota offered Correa a very reasonable 10-year, $285 million contract back in December that would have gone down as the largest the franchise has ever handed out. Instead of taking that deal, after naming the Twins as finalists and making it appear as though they may be front runners, Correa accepted a 13-year, $350 million deal with the Giants.

For all that Correa made about how much he loved playing in Minnesota and wanted to come back, and to have the franchise offer him single largest deal in club history, it amounted to absolutely nothing.

Well, that’s not true. It amounted in a deal to take to the Giants and see if they could match, which is likely what happened. There’s no documented reporting that Boras did this, but he’s perhaps the best sports agent working — if not among the best ever — and if a writer and fan can think of that idea then Boras is probably ten steps ahead.

The point is, it doesn’t take a genius to see that the Twins are prime candidate to be used as leverage in these situations and it once again seems as though Minnesota’s involvement in a Correa deal is as a chip on the table rather than a card in anyone’s hand. The situation is still developing, and there’s still an outside chance that a deal with the Mets falls apart and Minnesota ends up with Correa when the music stops.

But it’s hard to get excited about being a third or fourth option (if you count going to the Mets twice), and difficult to see mention of the Twins in the latest rumors as anything more than further leverage to make a deal in New York happen.