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One day after the Astros reportedly reached an agreement on a contract extension for Lance McCullers, Jr, his teammate Carlos Correa met with the media and discussed his negotiations with the team about his own extension. He did not paint a very pretty picture of his situation.
I've expressed confidence that the Astros believed a long-term extension is something they earnestly wanted to pursue and I agreed that is the prudent course, even though it's likely a very expensive one. Listening to Correa on Thursday night, serious, serious doubt was put on that possibility.
As I said many times that last two days on The A-Team, the six-year, $120 million was in my opinion, extremely low and could hamper negotiations. Like when you put in an offer on a house and your initial offer is such a lowball offer, the seller doesn't even want to continue negotiations and decides not to engage at all or even respond.
Nothing that Correa said today did anything to suggest the two sides will be ready to celebrate the announcement of a long-term extension for Correa before the team opens the season one week from today. That will put a damped on the entire season, even though Correa is primed for a huge year and the Astros should absolutely be in contention to reach the American League Championship series for the fifth consecutive season.
He acknowledged he'd received a six-year, $120 million extension offer, but said that was weeks ago and that he thought that offer was low. He added there have been no talks since that time. He very bluntly stated, "I'm preparing like I'm going to be a free agent this year."
He's already said he has a deadline of Opening Day for an extension to be done and re-iterated that deadline is not changing.
Correa added, "I've given five, six years of my career to this organization. Rookie of the year, all-star games, World Series Champions, multiple great playoff performances. If they don't see me here long-term, than another team will. There's never hard feelings, it's a business, (it's) how it works. So, yeah, that's that."