ARMED ASTRO
Correa’s ability to throw fast and accurately is what makes him an elite shortstop.
Hot or cold at the plate, it’s his throwing ability that makes the Astros’ Carlos Correa a special shortstop.
During every game he plays, Carlos Correa tucks a list of the opposing lineup inside his cap. Astros bench coach Joe Espada assigns each man a running grade using baseball’s 20-80 scouting scale. Correa checks the paper before each plate appearance. Before each pitch, he peeks toward the catcher behind home plate. His positioning depends on it.
“I move myself depending on the pitch,” Correa said. “Obviously, you don’t want to move too early and tip the pitch to the hitter; you want to move as the pitch is coming.”
Espada rates Billy Hamilton a 70 runner. He covers 29.6 feet per second when he sprints, according to Statcast. Just 14 major leaguers are faster. Hamilton faced Framber Valdez on Sunday with one out and the Astros trailing the Chicago White Sox by two runs. Martin Maldonado called for a first-pitch curveball.
Correa crept in for four steps. Valdez’s sinkers force him to move more toward the middle. Curveballs are more often sent to the sixhole. Correa covers it with ease.
“If he wants to get a hit off me, he’s got to beat me to the sides,” Correa said. “I don’t want him to beat me on an infield single.”
Valdez elevated the curveball. Hamilton hit it where Correa predicted. The shortstop shuffled four steps to his right and backhanded the baseball. The glove-to-hand transfer took maybe a few milliseconds. With just his left foot planted and Hamilton hitting peak speed, Correa uncorked a throw.
“He’s able to make these crazy, unbalanced throws right on the money,” Astros righthander Lance McCullers Jr. said. “Anyone can field a ground ball and throw the ball to first, but when you’re talking about unbalanced throws and being in weird parts of the outfield … that’s the whole package. It’s not just arm strength. It’s way beyond that. It’s like a sixth tool basically.”
Correa makes the remarkable look routine. His throw arrived two steps before Hamilton hit the bag, another absurd backhand in a career full of them. Correa has spoiled Houston for seven seasons with plays similar to this. No ground ball is out of his reach. Every throw is on target.
“His coordination, his body, the sequence on when he throws allows him to repeat the same arm stroke over and over again,” Espada said. “Every time he catches a ground ball, everything falls into the right sequence, and that’s how he’s able to repeat. Everything works freely and loose.”
Correa’s arm strength and accuracy are the envy of his peers, a product of his pitching past and precise attention to detail. Debate can rage whether he or Fernando Tatis Jr. has the sport’s best throwing arm at shortstop.
None is needed to assess Correa’s value to the eight defenders around him. He does not carry his current offensive malaise over to defense. Correa has never won a Gold Glove but settles for saving runs and bases while stabilizing an entire team.
“He sees stuff out there that it’s hard to see from this generation at shortstop,” Astros third-base coach Omar Lopez said. “Having him out there is like having another manager out there. He’s ahead of everybody in the game.”
Errors are few
Joe Smith’s sinker ran inside on Gary Sanchez. The Yankees slugger sent it against the Astros’ defensive shift, rendering Smith a spectator for the most crucial moment of his season. A.J. Hinch handed Smith a two-run lead to protect in Game 6 of the 2019 American League Championship Series. Sanchez represented the tying run.
Jose Altuve ran back toward his left to secure the baseball. Correa covered second base. Altuve’s flip
Statcast measures max-effort arm strength by averaging the top 10 percent of a player’s throws. Correa’s is 87.3 mph. Among shortstops with at least 50 maximum-effort throws, only two have a higher average: Tatis (90.5) and Jonathan Villar (87.4).
Tatis has 19 errors this season and is worth negative-5 defensive runs saved. Correa has four errors and is worth five defensive runs saved.
“The most important thing is that he’s accurate,” Espada said. to him sailed high. Correa raised his glove to grab it, slid his left foot on the bag and brought the crowd to its feet.
Statcast measured his throw across the diamond at 94.5 mph: the hardest infield relay of his career. With the double play completed, Correa formed a gun with his fingers and shoved it into an imaginary holster on his waistband.
“I think if Correa got (on) the mound,” third baseman Alex Bregman surmised, “he’d hit 95-100.”
The fantasy once felt far more real. Correa discovered his natural arm strength while pitching in Puerto Rican youth baseball. His father, Carlos Correa Sr., started strengthening his son’s scapula with three-pound dumbbell lifts and other various workouts. “All these exercises pitchers do nowadays,” Correa said.
Correa stopped pitching when he was 16. He continues some of those arm exercises now. According to Statcast, Correa has made 31 throws harder than 90 mph since 2015. Tatis has made 38. No other shortstop has more than 20.
“When Carlos lets a ball eat,” Smith said, “it is impressive.” “There’s a difference between having a strong arm and not hitting your target. It’s like a pitcher: He throws hard, but if he can’t command his pitches or throw strikes, it’s wasted.”
Relay master
“I think if Correa got (on) the mound, he’d hit 95-100.”
ALEX BREGMAN, ASTROS THIRD BASEMAN
“He’s able to make these crazy, unbalanced throws right on the money. Anyone can field a ground ball and throw the ball to first, but when you’re talking about unbalanced throws and being in weird parts of the outfield … that’s the whole package. It’s not just arm strength. It’s way beyond that. It’s like a sixth tool basically.”
LANCE MCCULLERS JR., ASTROS PITCHER
As the Yankees’ third base coach four years ago, Espada needed every extra base. Justin Verlander tore through New York’s lineup through 2 2⁄3 innings in Game 2 of the 2017 American League Championship Series. His first mistake came to Brett Gardner.
A full-count slider caught too much of the strike zone. Gardner demolished it down the right-field line. Josh Reddick ran in pursuit. Correa scurried out to stand as the cut-off man. Gardner raised his head as he approached second
base. His third-base coach waved him around.
“I never thought he was going to throw him out,” Espada said. “That’s why I made the decision. Go watch the replay, and you’ll know.”
Reddick retrieved the baseball. His throw forced Correa to the right and off his initial target. It did not matter. Standing in shallow right field, Correa delivered a onehop seed. Bregman corralled it and applied the tag.
“I think the best throws he makes are how accurate he is from so far away,” Bregman said. “The relay throws from the outfield … he puts them right on the money.”
Correa is gifted with a strong arm. Accuracy arrived through more work. Every day, Correa and his father played a throwing game. He earned one point for throwing at the chest and two points for the face. First to 20 won.
When he still pitched, a neighbor volunteered to catch Correa’s bullpen sessions in Puerto Rico. Correa’s father placed two containers atop one another to mimic a batter. The catcher set up behind them and placed his glove on the outside. Correa had one objective — to pound the glove.
“The accuracy was really good,” said Lopez, who managed Correa at Class A Quad Cities in his first full minor-league season. “But right now it’s super good. It’s off the charts. Defensively, arm-wise, I never had any questions.”
Lopez is in his second season on the major league staff. Correa’s exploits, even the most extraordinary, don’t dumbfound him. Most people who are around Correa long enough anticipate them. Espada is now among that group after learning the hard way.
“I’m always playing around with Joe,” Lopez said. “Joe gets excited, and I just say ‘Joe, I’m used to it.’ ”
Movable piece
Each coach or teammate has one throw he can’t forget. Correa saved McCullers at Minute Maid Park in 2018 with a backhanded stop and two-hop, cross-body throw against the Yankees’ Gleyber Torres.
“This year with the backhanded plays, I’ve been throwing more one-hops,” Correa said. “I feel like that’s way easier than just trying to go all the way in the air, especially with fast runners when I dive or slide to catch a ball.”
Two from last year’s American League Championship Series stick with Lopez. Smith is indebted to Correa for finishing off the 4-6-3 double play against Sanchez.
“I like to have him involved as much as we can on any play,” Espada said. “That’s why you keep him in the middle of the field. That’s why every time there’s a cut and relay, he’s the first guy to go out: because he’s got that playmaker mentality. He’s got the ability to adjust and see the field and understand where he needs to go with the ball.”
Espada positions the Astros’ infield during games. Correa affords him a luxury few other coaches have. His arm strength allows Espada freedom to move him all over the field in any shift or alignment.
When Altuve could not throw to first base during last season’s ALCS, Correa switched spots with him in the team’s shift against lefthanded hitters. Altuve has rectified most of his woes since but still has occasional blips throwing to bases. Correa masks that.
“Every time I get a ground ball on a double play, I feel like I don’t have to worry. I need to just give him the ball,” Altuve said. “Not quick, not slow, just a normal one, and he will fire the ball to first base.”
Correa is almost always the cutoff man for any outfield relay. Fifteen of his 20 hardest throws tracked by Statcast came from outfield relays. He hit 96.3 mph in a 2018 game against the Red Sox.
A throw in Cleveland one year later still captivates Espada. Jason Kipnis smacked a ball to the leftcenter gap off Gerrit Cole. Michael Brantley bobbled it momentarily but fulfilled his foremost objective: Get Correa the baseball. Cleveland third-base coach Mike Surbaugh waved Franmil Reyes home from first base. Correa threw a 94.5 mph dart from left field to retire him.
“It’s hard to be accurate when you’ve got a cannon until you learn how to control that cannon,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “Correa is accurate as hell no matter where he’s throwing the ball. Cutoffs, relays. This guy is the best.”
“Having him out there is like having another manager out there. He’s ahead of everybody in the game.”
OMAR LOPEZ, ASTROS THIRD BASE COACH
“It’s hard to be accurate when you’ve got a cannon until you learn how to control that cannon. Correa is accurate as hell no matter where he’s throwing the ball. Cutoffs, relays. This guy is the best.”
DUSTY BAKER, ASTROS MANAGER
Lesson learned
Correa’s final season before free agency magnifies his every move. He has remained healthy across the Astros’ first 97 games. He has an .852 OPS despite his current 1for-32 skid and maintains the highest bWAR of any Astro.
Correa has consistently called himself the most complete shortstop among the impending class of free agents, the one who “can do both” better than anyone.
“He has matured where he knows ‘I’m not going to force a play if I know that I don’t have a play,’ ” Espada said. “Just because he has all those tools doesn’t mean he can finish every play. Those tools allow him to finish more plays than any other shortstop, but he’s still smart enough where he’s not going to force it if it’s not there.”
Most third base coaches do not make the same mistake Espada made in 2017. Correa’s cannon is far too renowned around the league to test. He does not have a Gold Glove but has earned leaguewide respect for his defense.
Correa converts any remaining doubters quickly. First-year Oakland A’s third-base coach Mark Kotsay waved Mark Canha home from first base on July 6. Correa threw him out by four steps. The A’s lost the game 9-6. Kotsay’s decision deflated a dugout that had drubbed Valdez to start the game.
Correa said it surprised him that an American League West rival ran on his right arm. The next day, he exchanged pleasantries with second-base umpire Bill Welke. Welke welcomed Correa with a story. He worked third base the night before, where Kotsay made a confession.
“That’s the last time I run on Correa,” Kotsay told him.