SF Giants fans are getting a lump of free agency coal this holiday season, as the team backed out of its blockbuster $350 million deal with All-Star shortstop Carlos Correa, and then Correa promptly bolted to the Mets.

Your San Francisco Giants 2022 season may have been a disappointment, but that’s nothing compared to what Giants fans have been through in the last 24 hours, in which no actual baseball was played.

It was a mere eight days ago when the Giants signed All-Star shortstop Carlos Correa to a gargantuan 13-year, $350 million contract, making Correa the new cornerstone of the franchise, a young superstar in his prime, and visions of championship parades were dancing in Giants fans' heads. And then today, we wake up to this.

The Giants were set to introduce Correa at a Tuesday press conference, and then we got the bizarre word that the team abruptly canceled the press conference, which the AP reported was due to “a medical issue was flagged during Correa’s physical.” There was apparently some breakdown in communications between the Giants and Correa’s agent Scott Boras, because ESPN reports that at some point in the middle of the night, Correa went and signed with the New York Mets.

“When a player and team agree to terms, they strike a deal on contract details: years, dollars, performance bonuses, opt-outs, no-trade clauses and other financial levers,” as ESPN explains. “But that agreed-upon contract is not official until a player passes a medical examination, which includes an MRI, blood work and other general health tests. While it's rare, teams do occasionally flag a player's medicals, which allows for two outcomes: a renegotiation of the deal or it being scrapped altogether. Here, the latter occurred.”

The Chronicle has some additional inside baseball on the collapsed deal. “A news conference to introduce Correa as the new face of the Giants on Tuesday was hastily called off three hours before it was to begin,” the Chronicle reports on Tuesday’s events. “When the Giants called Correa’s agent, Scott Boras, to tell him the event was canceled over issues with Correa’s physical a day before, Boras said they wanted to continue to discuss a deal.”

Boras is probably the most successful agent in baseball, and he’s laying the blame squarely on the Giants. “I never heard from them after that” press conference was canceled, Boras told the Chronicle Wednesday morning. “We gave them ample time.”

For their part, the Giants’ president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said in a statement that, “While we are prohibited from disclosing confidential medical information, as Scott Boras stated publicly, there was a difference of opinion over the results of Carlos’ physical examination. We wish Carlos the best.”

SF Giants fans are understandably furious, after missing out on Aaron Judge earlier this month, and now this. Who knows, they might look prudent if Correa has an injury-prone season (and they will look like absolute morons if he does not). But your San Francisco Giants just made a huge offer and then reneged upon it, and for maddeningly vague reasons at that. That will do no favors to this team as a free agent destination, and the reputational damage could last for years.  

Related: Buster Posey Now a Co-Owner of the Giants, Becomes First Ex-Giant To Buy a Stake In the Team [SFist]

Image: MINNEAPOLIS, MN - SEPTEMBER 28: Carlos Correa #4 of the Minnesota Twins looks on against the Chicago White Sox on September 28, 2022 at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins/Getty Images)