MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Twins were smitten after one season of Carlos Correa's hitting, defense, intelligence, experience and leadership. The belief in those traits was strong enough to commit a franchise-record amount of guaranteed money for at least the next six years.
They badly needed a jolt for their brand off the field, too.
Correa picked two other teams before returning to Minnesota after those agreements fell through, but his $200 million contract was still pretty sweet for a fan base weary of a two-decade wait since the last time the Twins won a playoff series.
"There's a lot of excitement inside the building for sure from the business side of the operation to the baseball side, but also I hear from fans and from people around town, 'He chose to come back here,'" President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey said.