Major League Baseball is scheduled to kick off the 2021 regular season on Thursday, April 1. Oftentimes, the beginning of the season serves as a deadline for contract extensions; players, understandably, would prefer to focus on playing and playing alone once the games start counting for real.

Such is the case for New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, who is engaged in the most well-publicized extension talks, and for Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa. Correa's chances of reaching an agreement seemed remote last week, when he categorized the Astros' initial offer (believed to be worth $120 million over six years) as "really low" and revealed the two sides hadn't talked since.

Evidently Correa's comments brought the Astros back to the negotiating table. On Tuesday, Astros general manager James Click told reporters that the two sides have "had some more conversations over the weekend so we're going to keep at it."

It's unclear how much the Astros have improved their offer by, but precedent suggests Houston's original offer was indeed laughable. Here's what we wrote last week:

Correa and Lindor's extension talks are bound to have a sizable impact on this winter's free-agent class regardless of how they do (or don't) work out. As it stands, the shortstop market could be saturated with All-Star types, including that pair, Trevor Story, Javier Baez, and Corey Seager.