A shock wave reverberated through the baseball world late Thursday night when star free agent Kyle Tucker signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers on an eye-popping four-year, $240 million contract.
The deal includes a $64 million signing bonus, opt-outs after both the second and third seasons and $30 million of deferred money.
Tucker now has the highest present-day average annual average value of any player in major league history at $57.1 million, surpassing Juan Soto’s $51 million mark set last offseason.
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Besides the Dodgers, the Mets and Blue Jays were both in hot pursuit of Tucker as well.
The Mets offered a similarly massive four-year, $220 million deal with no deferred money and a whopping $75 million signing bonus. That was both a larger signing bonus and (obviously) less deferred money compared to the Dodgers’ winning offer.
The exact parameters of the Blue Jays’ final offer to Tucker isn’t known, but reporting suggests they were more focused on a longer term deal with less money per year. It’s clear Tucker’s camp couldn’t turn down the record AAV he got with an opportunity to re-test the free agent market in two years.
In the meantime, Tucker will join forces with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith in what is certainly the best lineup in baseball as the Dodgers chase their third consecutive World Series title.
What an embarrassment of riches. Tucker is now the eighth Dodger with at least a $100 million contract. The Phillies, Padres, and Blue Jays have the next most with six while the Yankees and Giants have five each. Seven teams don’t have a single active player who crosses that threshold.
As funny as it may sound, Tucker will fill a huge hole in the Dodgers’ lineup.
Despite scoring the most runs per game in the National League last season, their outfield was not productive at the plate. Cumulatively, they had a .240 batting average, .299 on-base percentage, and .714 OPS. That was eerily similar to Lourdes Gurriel’s slash-line.
They suffered through offensive woes during the playoffs too, scoring just 4.2 runs per game overall and 3.7 in the World Series. Even with a star-studded lineup their defense, pitching, and eventually Miguel Rojas bailed them out.
This will likely be less of an issue after adding Tucker. His .895 OPS over the last two seasons is sneakily the exact same as Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s and higher than Kyle Schwarber’s, just without the same fanfare.
He’s been one of the most productive players in the league since he became a full-time player in 2021 with both the 10th-most fWAR and 10th-highest wRC+ over the last five years.
Few players make as good of swings decisions as Tucker either. He very rarely chases pitches out of the zone, offers at the right ones in the zone, and has walked more than he’s struck out over the last two years.
By all accounts, he is one of the few best hitters in the game.
Yet, two relatively flukey injuries that caused fractures – a foul ball of his shin in 2024 and jamming his right hand on second base last season – seemed to hurt Tucker's value on the open market and standing among certain groups of fans.
Also, he’s never hit many of the key statistical benchmarks we look for when evaluating a star player.
Tucker has never exceeded 30 home runs, a .300 batting average, or five fWAR in a single season. On top of that, his bat speed is just middle of the pack and his batted ball data is pedestrian for someone making the most money in the sport this coming season.
Still, his production speaks for itself and those types of underlying concerns hold much less weight with him signing a four-year deal compared to the 10 or 12 years many expected him to get when this offseason began.
Is this deal a bad value? Probably on a dollar per WAR basis. The Dodgers clearly don’t care though and Tucker will likely be one of the most productive hitters in the game flanked by their All-Star lineup. He also insulates them against Freeman and Betts aging out of being elite players over the next few seasons. The rich really get richer.
Ranger Suarez to the Red Sox?
Now a bit lost in the shuffle, starting pitcher Ranger Suárez signed a five-year, $130 million contract with the Red Sox on Wednesday afternoon.
This deal came as a surprise for a few reasons.
First, the Red Sox had not been linked to Suárez all offseason. Moreover, it felt like no other teams were either. His market was completely silent to public knowledge until Boston swooped in after missing out on Alex Bregman over the weekend.
Next, the Red Sox weren’t exactly starved for rotation help. They traded for Sonny Gray earlier this offseason to support Garrett Crochet at the top and Johan Oviedo a bit later on to provide depth on the back-end.
They still have Bryan Bello as a steady number-four type, veterans Patrick Sandoval and Kutter Crawford on the mend, and super-charged rookies Payton Tolle and Connelly Early chomping at the bit to get their shots. Plus, former top prospect Kyle Harrison ready in the wings. Again, starting pitching was more of a vanity add than a true need.
Lastly, Suárez was an odd free agent to project. He’s been highly effective for his whole career with a 2.91 ERA overall as a starter and is known as one of the best command artisans in the game. He’s regarded as a playoff riser too with a 1.48 ERA across 42 2/3 postseason innings.
On the other hand, he doesn’t do many of the things teams value most on the open market.
His 21.9% strikeout rate over his last four seasons as a full time starter is a hair under league-average. Also, he’s never thrown more than 160 innings in a regular season. Most worrisome, his average fastball velocity has fallen by more than two full miles per hour over the last two seasons. It has fallen from over 93 mph to barely above 91 mph.
Admittedly, velocity is a bit less important to a pitcher like Suárez compared to others.
He has a deep five-pitch mix that forces hitters into uncomfortable decisions as he works them on the edges with remarkable consistency. Suárez also leans on a sinker much more than a four-seam fastball and the former is much less reliant on velocity to be effective.
Yet, he’s drifting dangerously close to breaking point where he could get into a lot more trouble throwing those fastballs.
Suárez was one of just 24 pitchers whose average fastball velocity was at or below 92 mph last season. The list includes some solid names like himself, Shota Imanaga and Jacob Lopez, but was more filled with guys like Jose Quintana, Clayton Kershaw’s corpse, and Tyler Anderson.
Even finding one more tick could do wonders for Suárez as he moves towards the back half of this deal. Check out much more effective fastballs are (relatively) once a left-handed pitcher can stretch back above 92 mph.
This likely won’t affect Suárez much in the near term where he still figures to be one of the 40 or so most valuable pitchers in the league. Some fear could set in down the line though if that velocity continues to fall on a deal that makes him the 12th-most expensive pitcher in the league per year at this moment.
▶ More Hot Stove Quick Hits
◆ Logic would tell us that the Blue Jays will turn their attention back to Bo Bichette after missing on Kyle Tucker. The Phillies seem to be winning that race though as Toronto is reportedly content with their current crop of infielders.
◆ Besides Juan Soto, the only outfielders on the Mets’ current 40-man roster are Tyrone Taylor, Jared Young, and Nick Morabito. Yikes. In a perfect world, none of those three will be starting on opening day and the Mets likely wouldn’t want any besides Taylor to break camp with the club.
Cody Bellinger is still on the market and embroiled in a stalemate with the cross-town Yankees. Will a bidding war start? Or could the Mets turn their attention back to the trade market for someone like Lars Nootbaar or Luis Robert whom they’ve both been connected with.
◆ In possibly the least talked about yet moderately interesting MLB transaction in some time, the Angels, Rays, and Reds agreed to a three-team trade that sent Josh Lowe to the Angels and Gavin Lux to Tampa Bay.
This trade was announced literally two minutes after Tucker’s contract and got completely lost in the hoopla, but is a fun swap of major league players nonetheless.
Back in 2023, Lowe hit 20 homers, stole 35 bases and put up an .835 OPS across 135 games. Since then, he’s played 214 games across two seasons with just a .670 OPS over that span.
Regular soft tissue injuries have dramatically slowed him down and the Angels are betting that some better health luck could unlock what was once sky-high potential. I’d feel a lot better about that risk if a team other than the Angels were taking it on.
Lux has settled in as a totally unspectacular producer who will run a high on-base percentage (.339 over the last three seasons) but without any semblance of game power (five home runs in 140 games last season). He might find his way into the lead-off spot down in Tampa Bay though ahead of Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda, and Yandy Díaz.
◆ Cubs’ president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer mentioned that Matt Shaw could find some playing time in the outfield this season after the addition of Alex Bregman. That reaffirms the fact that Shaw will be seen as a super-utility man in Chicago and it’s mildly interesting that they’ll likely try to get him at-bats any way possible.
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