LOS ANGELES — There is nothing stopping a team from signing a player with a medical issue. There is nothing stopping Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets.
The two converged at midnight. On Tuesday morning, the San Francisco Giants had scheduled a news conference to welcome Carlos Correa. By Wednesday morning, after the Giants hesitated in the wake of Correa's physical examination, Cohen had swooped in and whisked Correa off to the Mets.
The phrase "agreement pending a physical examination" does not mean a deal is automatically blown up if a player fails the examination. What happened overnight simply means Cohen was willing to take a risk that the Giants and their owners were not.
