Baseball fans across the country—well, except those who were awake at nearly 3 a.m. ET—woke up to some stunning news: Carlos Correa, who had agreed to one of the biggest contracts in MLB history with the Giants last week, is actually signing with the Mets.

The first hint that something was up was when San Francisco called off its planned Tuesday press conference to introduce Correa. The Associated Press reported later that Giants doctors had concerns with Correa’s physical exam, hence the holdup in the official announcement.

Then came the stunner. At 2:38 a.m. ET, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reported that Correa was in agreement with the Mets. His original agreement with the Giants had been for a reported 13 years and $350 million. The Mets’ deal is for a reported 12 years and $315 million. (Correa, who has never played anywhere but shortstop as a pro, is reportedly expected to move to third base, with Francisco Lindor remaining at shortstop.)

“This really makes a big difference,” Mets owner Steve Cohen told the Post. “I felt like our pitching was in good shape. We needed one more hitter. This puts us over the top.”

Cohen, baseball’s richest owner, has been on an unprecedented spending spree this winter. The Mets have already signed Justin Verlander (two years, $86.7 million), Japanese starter Kodai Senga (five years, $75 million), José Quintana (two years, $26 million), Omar Narváez (two years, $15 million) and David Robertson (one year, $10 million), in addition to re-signing Brandon Nimmo (eight years, $162 million), Edwin Díaz (five years, $102 million) and Adam Ottavino (two years, $14.5 million, with an opt-out). Their 2023 payroll, according to ESPN, is projected to be $384 million, $90 million over the fourth and final luxury-tax threshold, which means the team will pay an additional $100 million in taxes.

Cohen set expectations high when he took over as owner in late 2020, saying at his introductory press conference that if the team didn’t win a World Series “in the next three to five years, I’d consider that slightly disappointing.” And he’s gone out and spent to make a championship a real possibility. Cohen, a hedge fund manager whose net worth is estimated to be at least $12 billion, has immediately ramped up spending on his team. In ’21, his first season in charge, the Mets had the third-highest payroll in baseball. Last season, it was No. 2. This year, they’re projected to be No. 1 by a wide margin over the Yankees.

Cohen’s spending is a breath of fresh air in a sport where owners have trended toward penny-pinching in recent years. Even the Yankees spent the past several seasons carefully monitoring the luxury-tax threshold. But even though MLB teams keep their financial statements as top secret as the nuclear codes, the majority of teams are surely capable of spending more than they do. Most teams are owned by billionaires that, while they might not be as rich as Cohen, certainly wouldn’t be bankrupted if they spent more on free agents. Hopefully Cohen’s spending will translate into wins and force the rest of the league to try to keep up.

The best of Sports Illustrated

In today’s Daily Cover, Conor Orr explains why Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen is going to be the next top head coaching candidate:

The secret, according to those who know him, is an ability to reverse engineer. Steichen wants all of his quarterbacks—all of his players, really—to feel like he did in those moments back in high school or on the practice field where the coach, the play, the quarterback and the offense are all aligned, bound by the cosmic joy of the perfect call at the perfect moment. The same can be said for his system in general, which is a scheme based in some ways on the classic Norv Turner–style offense—full of punishing deep shots and efficient, layered routes underneath—but more of a vision driven by the quarterback’s personal comforts. In short, Steichen succeeds by taking what his team is best at, taking what makes a defense uncomfortable by virtue of their own rules, and overlaying the two into a vicious game plan.

Before the Correa news, Stephanie Apstein wrote that the Mets need to win the World Series after signing Justin Verlander. That’s even more true now.
Michael Rosenberg blames the Patriots’ lost season on Bill Belichick’s stubborn decision not to hire an offensive coordinator and have longtime defensive coach Matt Patricia call the plays.
Will Laws has five ideas for trades involving Shohei Ohtani.
In the wake of the Suns sale, Chris Almeida and Jon Wertheim discuss whether leagues have found the formula for forcing owners out.
Hall of Fame Steelers running back Franco Harris, known for the “Immaculate Reception,” has died.
LIV Golf players will be allowed to play in the Masters next year, Augusta National announced.
Watch SI’s Bill Enright analyze the 10 games for Week 16 in the SI Sportsbook Perfect 10 Contest.

The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. The Flames’ two goals in the first 30 seconds of their game against the Sharks.

4. Kevin Fiala’s goal against the Ducks.

3. A soaring dunk by 36-year-old Jeff Green.

2. Penei Sewell’s breakdown of the video of a fan doing pass-blocking drills at a tailgate.

1. The crowds in Buenos Aires for Argentina’s World Cup parade.

SIQ

Which Mets player, born on this day in 1960, was identified as the “second spitter” in the Seinfeld episode “The Boyfriend” that featured Keith Hernandez as a guest star?

Ron Darling
Roger McDowell
Wally Backman
Jesse Orosco

Yesterday’s SIQ: After the final game of the NFL season on Dec. 20, 1925, the Chicago Cardinals were declared champions with a record of 11-2-1. But which team was controversially disqualified from championship contention in the final weeks of the season and still believed by many to be the rightful titleholder?

Providence Steam Roller
Akron Pros
Detroit Panthers
Pottsville Maroons

Answer: Pottsville Maroons. The controversy begins with the fact that the NFL did not have a postseason championship game until 1933. Instead, the team with the best regular-season winning percentage would be named the champion, and, given that teams didn’t all play the same number of games, this was already a tricky proposition.

So when the Cardinals and Maroons met in Chicago on Dec. 6 in a matchup of the top two teams in the league, it was a de facto league championship game. Pottsville won 21–7 and had the inside track at the championship.

Now here’s where things get weird in a very early-20th-century way. After the Frankford Yellow Jackets defeated the Maroons 20–0 on Nov. 14, Frankford signed a contract allowing the best pro team in Pennsylvania (Frankford is a neighborhood in Philadelphia, while Pottsville is about 100 miles northwest) to face a team of former Notre Dame players in an exhibition game. But after Pottsville won a rematch against Frankford, the Maroons were given the option to play the Notre Dame game instead of the Yellow Jackets. Rather than play the game at their home stadium in Pottsville, a small coal mining city, the Maroons opted to play at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park in hopes of selling more tickets.

After the game, Frankford lodged a complaint with the league claiming that Pottsville had violated its territorial rights and had drawn Philadelphia fans away from a Frankford game that was held on the same day. NFL president Joseph Carr sided with Frankford and revoked the Maroons’ franchise, leaving them unable to play their final scheduled regular-season game.

The Cardinals took advantage and quickly added two games to their schedule to pad their record and finish with a higher winning percentage than the Maroons. They beat the Milwaukee Badgers on Dec. 10 and the Hammond Pros two days later, finishing with one more win than the Maroons. The two extra victories were also the subject of controversy, though. The Badgers and the Pros had disbanded for the season already, and, for Milwaukee to field a team, Chicago’s Art Folz convinced four high school players to suit up for the Badgers.

In 1967 and 2003, the NFL’s owners revisited the Maroons’ claims to the title, but on both occasions they voted in favor of recognizing the Cardinals as champs.

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