Giants’ big Carlos Correa moment passes in silence, fueling concerns and questions

The San Francisco Giants have had a lot of strange and unexpected days in recent years. But Tuesday, which was scheduled to be a day of great excitement and promise, may have been the strangest.

On Tuesday morning, less than three hours before the Giants were set to announce the mega-signing of Carlos Correa to the biggest deal in franchise history, the organization sent a one sentence, seven-word email:

Today’s Giants press conference has been postponed.

That was it. No more official word, as of Tuesday evening. Just silence.

Predictably, this cryptic message caused panic among fans, on sports talk radio and on Twitter if you still choose to use that platform. Rampant speculation rushed to fill the void, spiraling in every direction conceivable, from nefarious to mundane to tragic. Unfounded diagnoses and rumors stretched out over the airwaves and social media.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser reported that the reason behind the delay was a wait for test results. Slusser reported that a source confirmed that “an issue was flagged” during Correa’s Monday physical, but that the source said the issue did not involve Correa’s back, which has caused occasional problems for the player in the past.

The Giants had never officially announced the Correa contract, which is a common practice among sports organizations. They choose to wait until the physical is complete before the deal becomes official. Because, as may be the case here, you never know what will happen.

Tuesday’s postponement was a very strange twist in the Giants’ ongoing quest for relevancy and a franchise face. After a completely unforgettable season, and a largely unmemorable team, the Giants needed a jolt. They needed a star. The rotating, platooning cast playing an unexciting brand of baseball was clearly not working.

The team’s pursuit of Aaron Judge this offseason was a bust and the franchise was desperate to land a marquee name. That hunt seemed fulfilled a week ago, when it was reported that Correa had agreed to a 13-year, $350 million deal.

Correa, a Scott Boras client, is younger than Judge, seemed likely to age better, plays a premium position and could give the team the face it has been missing since Buster Posey’s retirement. The deal also helped silence the growing criticism that the Giants were viewed as an undesirable landing spot for free agents.

Correa’s deal came after several other stars, some represented by Boras, had rejected the Giants, for whatever reason. After years of being overshadowed by the Dodgers, and more recently the Padres, the Giants and president of baseball operation Farhan Zaidi desperately needed a win this offseason.

Correa was going to be that win.

But the oddity of Tuesday threw everything into doubt.

Part of the strangeness was the Giants’ silence. The organization is not usually this opaque. Terse news releases are not the Giants’ normal mode of operation so the message, in this case, became part of the cause for alarm.

The Giants have never committed to a 13-year contract. Only one other player in MLB history has gotten that long of a deal: Bryce Harper in Philadelphia. Such unprecedented length was likely the only way they were going to get Correa to sign with them.

But any long-term contract comes with risks. It’s a calculated equation: How long can a player perform at a high level before the deal becomes one of diminishing returns? Almost all long-term deals will look bad by their end points, which is all the more reason that teams have to feel a high degree of certainty that the player will be at his physical peak at the beginning of such a signing. Whatever happened Tuesday with Correa seems to have thrown that notion into doubt.

What was expected to be the biggest moment in recent franchise history, a launching point for the future, has been put on hold. And, instead of unveiling a triumphant answer, there were nothing but questions.

Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annkillion