Report: Doctor claims Carlos Correa has 'worst ankle he's seen'
Slipped into a league-wide MLB report from New York Post insider Jon Heyman is a line about an unidentified source claiming Minnesota Twins shortstop Carlos Correa's ankle is in bad shape.
Heyman wrote that "one doctor suggested Correa has the worst ankle he's seen," adding that getting $33.3 million annually from the Twins was the work of "Houdini" after Correa's market allegedly collapsed.
It was exams on Correa's ankle that scared away the Giants and Mets after both teams reportedly offered him gigantic contracts, allowing the Twins to slide back into the mix and sign Correa to a six-year deal worth $200 million.
"Doctors have a difference of opinions. I had a lot of doctors tell me that I was fine. I had some doctors that said it wasn't so fine," said Correa the day he was introduced (again) as Minnesota's star shortstop. "It was shocking to me because since I had this surgery I never missed a game. My ankle's never hurt."
Correa underwent surgery on his ankle in 2014. Eight years later he's been fine, but that wasn't enough to keep the Giants and Mets interested at a $200 million price tag.
His agent, Scott Boras, believes the Twins felt Correa's functional fitness outweighs the concerns that showed up on MRI scans before his deals with the Giants and Mets fell apart.
"This scenario is about a large separation in the orthopedic community about functional fitness and clinical exam versus looking at an MRI. Surgeons who don't treat athletes but they do a lot of surgery will look at an MRI and say one thing, and the other doctors that treat patients and look at them and they find little credence in the MRIs when they've seen dramatic performance, particularly over an 8-year span and they're going to reward that with functional fitness and say certain athletes have certain pain levels, certain tolerance," said Boras.
"Many orthopedists believe there's almost a Darwinian concept where you actually grow into a formation of your being able to compete and perform," he continued. "It is a dramatic chasm between how some doctors feel and other doctors feel about the longevity of a player's performance."
Whatever the case, Correa now has to outperform the stigma of a medical professional thinking he has the "worst ankle" he's ever seen.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.