Written by Carlos Correa is in the news a lot these days. He had an excellent year for the Astros, leading them to the American League pennant. He won the Gold Glove award as the best defensive American League shortstop and the Platinum Glove as the best overall defender in the American League.
Correa is the most sought out free agent this off-season. At age 27, his best years lie ahead of him, and likely will receive a contract in the range of $350 million over ten years. Fans here in Houston hope he stays and finishes his career here but accept that Carlos likely will follow the money and move on.
Correa is a natural leader, and he helps manage the pitching staff and is present at every mound visit. Sometimes pitching coach Brent Strom would just let Carlos do the talking. When Jake Meyers slammed into the wall trying to save a home run against the White Sox in the ALDS, he immediately ran out to centerfield and counseled Meyers and convinced him it was in the team’s best interests for him to trust his teammates and leave the game.
Not only is he invaluable on the field, but Correa is also an ambassador for his team and the game. He is well-spoken and is a complete nerd about statistics. In a fascinating interview with Alanna Rizzo from MLB Network, Carlos eloquently broke down advanced sabermetrics to explain how his teammate Kyle Tucker was one of the best hitters in the league. He also made a compelling case for Shoei Ohtani to win the American League MVP award over Vladimir Guerro, Jr.
Correa is in the prime of his career and is uniquely qualified to be a coach on the field, a general manager in the front office, or a broadcaster in the booth. It’s his time.
Unfortunately, Carlos may not be signing with the Yankees after stating that Derek Jeter did not deserve his five Gold Glove awards. Yankee fans already detest Correa for his role in the Astros sign-stealing scheme, and taking on their captain and hero certainly didn’t help patch any of these wounds.
However, the facts back up Correa’s statements. Another trait Carlos has is his brutal honesty, and he says it like it is whether we want to hear it or not. Correa is a cheater, but he is not a liar. It turns out this combination is scarce and may explain why he confuses so many people.
Most cheaters are liars, too. And, most honest people do not cheat. Researchers recently completed a study using a coin toss game, and they determined that most people would either follow the rules and be honest about their results or break the rules and lie about them. Only 7% of people were honest cheaters like Carlos, and another 7% followed the rules and lied about it.
Therefore, the study concludes that if you are a cheater, you are probably a liar too. People understand this from their day-to-day lives and are unlikely to believe what a proven cheater like Correa says. It explains why opposing fans consider Jose Altuve is a cheater even though Correa eloquently denied that Altuve participated in the trash can scheme.
What was more disturbing was how many lying cheaters are out there. If you group the honest people with the outliers, you get 51% of the population, which means almost half of the participants were entirely dishonest. And, the two groups don’t like each other. You either wear a black hat or a white hat.
Our politics seem to reflect this. Because there are so many rules, with many of them outdated or disputable, it is easy for otherwise good people to end up wearing a black hat these days.
Nobody understands this dynamic better than the media. We spend billions of dollars to watch heroes bring cheaters to justice, and it sells movie tickets, cable advertising, and streaming subscriptions. It, along with ridiculous all-time best lists, generates internet clickbait. Sports journalists obsess about cheating scandals and use their platform to rally the public against perceived villains.
But is this fair? And where does it end?
In 2008, my son and I made a pilgrimage to Cooperstown, New York, to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was a spectacular day, and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. But the lasting impression I had was how odd the absence of all-time hit leader Pete Rose was. Ty Cobb, who not only cheated but also was a racist and all-around bad guy, was there. But Cobb came from a different era.
Our visit was almost twenty years after Rose was “canceled” from baseball, given a lifetime ban from the game for gambling on baseball. Rose remains absent in the hall today, thirteen years after our trip. In the last 32 years, our society has embraced sports gambling. If you watched the World Series this year, you saw Hall of Famer John Smoltz give bettings odds during the broadcast.
Each year sportswriters elect new members into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This year’s ballot is interesting for several reasons. Because players are only eligible for the vote for ten years, it is the last year that Barry Bonds will be on the ballot. Widely considered the best hitter of all time other than Babe Ruth, chances are he will not receive the necessary 75% of the vote to get in due to his connection to baseball’s steroid era. Same for one of the best pitchers of all time, Roger Clemens. Neither failed a drug test but wore the labels of liars and cheaters by the media and the public.
Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz make their first appearance on this year’s ballot. Both are famous and deserving, but each has a positive test result on their record. Fading memories from the steroid era litter the ballot, and it makes you wonder if a plaque of Carlos Correa will hang in Cooperstown twenty years from now.
The odds are against him.