In 30 Teams, 30 Posts, I write a post (of varying amounts of seriousness) about every MLB team in some way in the lead-up to the beginning of the 2016 season. Earlier installments can be found here. Today, the Houston Astros and their young star, Carlos Correa.
If I was making a computer program to pick out the next “Face of Baseball”, I’d tell it to find a young position-player phenom who was bilingual and played in a large city, who has already tasted both the highs and the lows of Major League Baseball.
In other words, I’d basically force it to pick Carlos Correa of the Houston Astros. Just 21, the Houston shortstop is perhaps everything that baseball would want in a new superstar.
Here’s why:
- He’s young. Even younger than Harper and Trout.
- He’s bilingual, able to speak both his native Spanish (he’s from Puerto Rico) and English. With the great internationalization of baseball, this allows him to reach fans around the Western Hemisphere regardless of what language they speak.
- While he plays with joy and confidence, he also doesn’t seem to be one to make enemies or ruffle too many feathers. Not that there’s anything wrong with ruffling feathers when they need to ruffled, of course.
- He already knows joy and pain. He helped lead the Astros to the playoffs last season, but also was somewhat responsible for their shocking blow-up in the ALDS against the Royals.
- He plays in a big market- Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States!
- Most importantly of all… he’s good! Really good! He had 22 HRs last season despite only appearing in 99 games. He showed great speed on the bases, swiping 14 bags while only getting caught four times. And while his “slash stats” show some room for improvement, they still are remarkable for somebody so young playing at shortstop, and will probably improve in the coming years.
So, in short, Carlos Correa is awesome.