Mamas, please let your babies grow up to be shortstops

Baseball hopes its real season is as spicy as its drunken off-season.

Carlos Correa

It’s like Carlos Correa decided Los Angeles didn’t hate him enough.

He was already getting booed in Dodger Stadium, five years and two teams after Houston beat L.A. in the 2017 World Series and was thereupon punished for electronic espionage. Even when he and the relatively harmless Minnesota Twins came to town last year, the L.A. fans pulled their heads out of their phones and let Correa have it.

You could almost hear him calculating: How can I top this?

I know. I’ll sign with the Giants.

Correa put himself in position to become L.A.’s Public Enemy No. 1 through multiple generations. He signed a 13-year, $350 million deal to play shortstop for the Giants, who will presumably move Brandon Crawford, the shafted MVP candidate in 2021, to third base.

Correa is a former first-overall pick in the draft and the 2015 Rookie of the Year. But if he ever was on a Cooperstown track, there’s been a significant detour. He has exceeded 600 plate appearance twice in eight years. He has topped 20 home runs six times and has a nice .836 OPS for his position, and his leadership skills are highly recommended. But he’s also 28 years old, and the Giants will be playing him nearly $27 million in 2036, when he will be 41.

Correa is only the latest member of the Hall of Very Good who has been the beneficiary of this industry-wide bender.

Trea Turner signed with the Phillies for 11 years and $400 million. Again, he’s a former batting champ whose speed changes the geometry of the game, but that speed will disappear long before he gets a cottage on the Isle of Wight with grandchildren Vera, Chuck and Dave. Turner won’t be 64 when that no-trade contract expires, but he will be 40.

Not to be out-spent, the Padres swooped down on Xander Bogaerts with an 11-year deal worth $340 million. He’s durable and productive, with four .300 seasons at the plate, and he’ll probably collect at least 2,500 hits. That’s still $25.45 million per annum that can’t be “restructured” or just vaporized, a la the NFL, and Bogaerts is 30. But it does make San Diego the N.L. West favorite unless the Dodgers pull off a trade for certain pitcher-DHs before spring training.

The richest deal was the one that probably raised the fewest eyebrows. Aaron Judge re-upped with the Yankees for nine years, $360 million. A 62-homer season and an MVP award will have that effect, and Judge, 30, might also have been the Most Improved Player, hiking his OPS from .544 to .686 and leading the A.L. in runs and walks. Judge also is best equipped to make the late-career transition to designated hitter, which is the excuse the others use for their bloated contribution to the Shortstops Retirement Fund.

But the most audacious gamble came from the Rangers, who gave 34-year-old Jacob deGrom $37 million a year for five years even though deGrom could only give the Mets 26 starts over the past two seasons. DeGrom is a back-to-back Cy Young winner who might still be the game’s best pitcher when functional. Still, this is the price for a lagging farm system, especially in the pitching realm.

No one should begrudge the players for taking the money or the agents for setting the terms of engagement. At this writing, the Braves’ Dansby Swanson is the last shortstop left standing, probably the best defender in the group and a 29-year-old (by Opening Day) who has missed two games the past two years. His eyes are bigger than Hartsfield Airport these days.

And the teams wouldn’t be spending it if they didn’t have it. Deals with Peacock and Apple and Draft Kings, along with Disney’s full acquisition of Baseball Advanced Media, have swelled the coffers, even for the shameful Scrooges who run the franchises in Pittsburgh, Miami and Kansas City and have no problem treating their customers (or former customers) to .400 baseball.

But when clubs lapse into bad management, it eventually trickles down and corrodes the game. And they wind up losing to those who know how to strategize.

Houston had no problem letting Correa become a free agent after 2021, when he signed a 1-year deal with Minnesota, because it knew Jeremy Pena was on the way. Pena, 25, became the MVP of the 2022 World Series.

The Braves would love to keep Swanson on their terms, but if that’s impossible they have Vaughn Grissom, who hit .291 for Atlanta in 41 games as a 21-year-old. The Braves have few other winter puzzles to solve because of their foresight, and the willingness of players to understand their plan. Ronald Acuna is signed through 2026, Spencer Strider through ‘28, Matt Olson through ‘29, Michael Harris through ‘30 and Austin Riley through ‘32. Nobody in that group will make over $22 million a year. Everyone in that group has a justified belief that the Braves will be contenders every season.

Phillies’ owner John Middleton frequently has said he’s willing to pay “stupid money” to win. It’s not stupid to think Turner will help his team, but in the World Series euphoria Middleton might have forgotten that the Phillies were 87-75 and needed an expansion of the playoffs to get in. They still lack a reliable closer and they won’t have Bryce Harper for at least half of 2023. There are also questions about Turner’s shortstop defense, particularly now that the shift has been outlawed.

All of this spices up baseball conversation in the winter, even though the game really needs more conversation in the summer, when the games are played.

One indisputable forecast: Carlos Correa will be booed at Dodger Stadium as if he were the harbinger of an earthquake. He’ll also know it was his own fault.