Belt, Correa have unique outlooks far from S.F.

Brandon Belt and Carlos Correa don’t have much in common, and that includes their future in the baseball postseason. Belt made a slick move from the rubble to the penthouse, while Correa decided he has had enough glory — it’s time to buy 18 yachts.

We kid about Correa’s aspirations; he’s quite a decent fellow and a leader of men, not to mention one of the best allaround infielders of recent times. It’s just that, given the sign-stealing scandal that so badly tarnished his only championship season (2017 in Houston), you would think he would love to get back in the highstakes game.

It was right there in front of him: just sign with the Mets, whether it preceded the San Francisco Giants’ commitment or thereafter, when other teams got interested. He was all set to play third base, alongside longtime friend Francisco Lindor, on a team gearing up for a World Series run.

“This puts us over the top,” boasted Mets owner Steve Cohen before the details of Correa’s physical scotched his 12year deal with New York. The Mets’ players were discouraged to hear he finally had signed with the Minnesota Twins, offering anonymous comments ranging from “everyone is disappointed” to “the Braves and Phillies must be very happy” that Correa is out of the National League East.

Instead, his vision blinded by everything but dollar signs — the Twins offered the highest annual salary at $33 million, over six years — Correa trudged back to Minnesota. This is a fairly interesting team, with .316-hitting Luis Arraez, the supremely talented Byron Buxton and a couple of starting pitchers of local interest (Marin County-raised Joe Ryan and ex-Athletic Sonny Gray). But the Twins haven’t won a playoff series in 31 years and lost 16 straight postseason games — 13 of them to the Yankees — from 2004-19.

Belt certainly doesn’t need another World Series to bolster his resume, but winning another hardly seemed likely had he played out his career in San Francisco. Now he joins a Toronto club not just loaded with dangerous hitters — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman, Alejandro Kirk, Daulton Varsho — but features a dynamite rotation including Alek Manoah, Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios and Chris Bassitt.

Imagine Belt heading into Yankee Stadium with the Jays, ready to take a shot at that convenient right-field porch against a club that did its own great work this offseason: re-signing Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo and raiding the Giants for future Hall of Fame executive Brian Sabean and pitcher Carlos Rodón, he of the world-class stuff. “The last time I saw a hard slider like that from a left-hander,” marveled Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow, “was Steve Carlton in the early ’80s.”

Quite the legacy

Aside from his quirky and beloved sense of humor, Belt will always be remembered for his 18th-inning homer on a bitterly cold night in Washington, D.C., in 2014, clinching Game 2 of the Division Series. There was quite a bit more when it mattered.

In the 2012 NLCS against St. Louis — a series in which the Giants trailed 3-1 at one point — he had a single and a triple behind Ryan Vogelsong in the Giants’ Game 6 victory and two more hits, including a homer, in the Game 7 rout. As San Francisco finished off a World Series sweep in Detroit that year, Belt tripled off Max Scherzer to score the first run in a 4-3 victory. He also had three RBIs in the 8-0 wild-card win at Pittsburgh in 2014, and batted .308 in the seven-game 2014 World Series against Kansas City.

He could be agonizingly vulnerable to the strikeout, but on certain occasions, his batting eye was nothing short of remarkable. Belt had a 12-minute, 45-second at-bat against Angels right-hander Jaime Barria in April 2018, at one point fouling off 11 pitches in a row. He wound up flying out to right, but that became the first 21-pitch at-bat in the 30-year history of MLB officially counting pitches.

Among his countless funny lines over the years, one of my favorites arrived in 2014, after he hit three homers in the Giants’ first four games. “I’m looking to break all the home run records,” he told the assembled media. “I said coming into the season I was looking to hit 74, so we’ll see what happens. I might have to make it 100.”

Spare the sympathy

Reports out of Los Angeles suggest that the Dodgers, in releasing Trevor Bauer at the cost of $22.5 million, won’t be able to afford Shohei Ohtani if he hits the free-agent market next winter. Oh, boo-hoo. With those resources? They’ll find a way to offer Ohtani what he wants. … That’s class: For much of the early season, Raiders fans complained that the Derek Carr-Davante Adams combination (which dates to their days at Fresno State) offered only fleeting rewards. But there was Adams after 16 games, piling up 1,443 yards to break Tim Brown’s franchise record. Adams finished with 1,516: In the days of the 14-game season, Cliff Branch racked up 1,111 yards in 1976, and Warren Wells had 1,260 in 1969. Ask any franchise to come up with its two all-time best receivers on the deep ball. I’ve got Branch and Wells without even blinking. … A victim of his times, and the NCAA’s ridiculously petty enforcement system, USC’s Reggie Bush was stripped of his well-earned Heisman Trophy in 2005. So he and his family received “impermissible benefits” from a marketing agent while playing for the Trojans; whatever. That was happening throughout major college football. Now comes the good news that Bush is among 18 players in the latest College Football Hall of Fame class. With student-athletes routinely signing lucrative NIL deals, it’s time to give him back the trophy.

WNBA players come and go on the offseason European circuit, but based on this week’s reports, there are prominent players in Italy (Rhyne Howard), the Czech Republic (Alyssa Thomas, Brionna Jones) and Turkey (Breanna Stewart, Courtney Vandersloot, Natasha Howard, Satou Sabally, Emma Meesseman and Kayla McBride with Fenerbahce; Chelsea Gray, Tiffany Hayes, Jonquel Jones and DeWanna Bonner with CBK). Under the league’s “prioritization” rules, if players with two more years of experience miss the start of the WNBA’s regular season May 19, they will be suspended for the year. That may not be a problem for Euroleague stars, but last year’s Turkish playoffs didn’t end until May 15. To say the least, the players are angered and offended. They go overseas to make decent money — rarely the case in the WNBA — and they feel they were railroaded into accepting the restriction. “The league was in a place of not negotiating (in the collective bargaining talks) without it,” said Sue Bird. “I’m not defending it. I want the WNBA to thrive so we never have to go overseas.”

And finally: For those of us who chose Ocean Beach as our go-to spot in the fall and winter, Bob Wise’s surf shop was a staple. It was disheartening to learn that his shop closed, after 51 years, and then came this week’s news of his passing. Here’s to the tough, laconic and deeply respected proprietor. He will be missed.