MLB Network ranks Twins' Carlos Correa as league's seventh-best shortstop

Correa is coming off a season where he played at an elite level...when he was on the field.

Sep 14, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Twins' Carlos Correa (4) turns a double play against the Cincinnati Reds in the second inning at Target Field. / Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

For the second consecutive year, Twins star Carlos Correa checks in at No. 7 on MLB Network's annual ranking of the top ten shortstops in baseball.

Here are the Top 10 shortstops in the Big Leagues, according to The Shredder! @MLBNow | #Top10RightNow pic.twitter.com/MpruEBO4Wo

— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) January 23, 2025

Correa has been a fixture on these rankings for the last decade, peaking at No. 1 after his breakout 2017 season with the Astros. Last year was his tenth MLB season and his third with the Twins, and it was one of his best — when he was on the field.

Despite missing a couple weeks in April, Correa earned his third All-Star game appearance with a strong first half performance for Minnesota. Unfortunately, he then missed two months due to plantar fasciitis from mid-July to mid-September, which partially coincided with the Twins' late-season collapse that saw them miss the postseason in shocking fashion.

Correa was limited to 86 games on the season. During that time, he still managed to compile a team-high 3.7 Wins Above Replacement, according to Baseball Reference. Correa hit .310 with 36 extra-base hits and a .905 OPS while playing his typically excellent defense at short. His underlying metrics were all excellent. Correa's 152 OPS+ (OPS relative to the league average) was his best mark since that 2017 season when he was 22 years old.

Now 30, Correa is probably the Twins' most important player heading into the 2025 season. He's one of their two stars, along with Byron Buxton, who need to stay healthy for as many games as possible if the Twins are going to bounce back and return to the postseason. If that duo is hitting in the top three in the lineup and playing shortstop and center field, Minnesota will feel like it has a pretty good chance to win a lot of games. Without either or both players, the lineup gets fairly bleak.

Encouragingly, it sounds like both are having very promising, healthy offseasons.

Correa and Buxton are the Twins' only two players ranked in the top ten at their positions. Buxton checked in as the No. 3 CF in the game, according to MLB Network.