The Los Angeles Dodgers have seemingly held off on announcing the Kyle Tucker deal, and the reason stems from a full 40-man roster.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news roughly five days ago, and the delay on the signing has raised eyebrows around the league and among fans. With the roster filled to the brim, the Dodgers are set to make a corresponding move soon.
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The Dodgers can go a variety of ways, by either trading one of the players on the 40-man roster or DFA’ing one of them.
A move will be made sooner rather than later, as spring training slowly approaches. Tucker is ready to contribute to the back-to-back World Series champions, and soon they will embark on their journey to become the first three-peat champions in the sport in a quarter-century.
The 28-year-old will bring offensive firepower and a massive upgrade defensively. While Tucker’s defense may not be as elite as it was in his 2022 Gold Glove season, it is an improvement from what they had last season.
While that is the case, Tucker still has a long way to go in order for L.A.’s outfield defense to even be average. Last season, Tucker did not grade out as an elite right fielder with a minus-two outs above average. Still, that was better than Teoscar Hernandez’s outs above average, which was at minus-nine. Hernandez’s minus-nine in that category was the fourth-worst among qualified right fielders.
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Once the Dodgers announce the Tucker signing, then the real fun will begin. The Florida native comes to L.A. as a four-time All-Star, World Series champion, All-MLB Second Team in 2021, two-time Silver Slugger Award winner and a one-time AL RBI leader.
Tucker in L.A. certainly provides the team with a great chance to three-peat, and if his defense is even a slight upgrade, the Dodgers will once again be the last team standing in 2026.
Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
2 Responses
Oh, and here I was thinking it was buyer’s remorse. “Uh, we actually paid a slightly above average player $60M AAV? Everyone in MLB hates us now – and this gives them a justifiable reason. No more of these things at the end of happy hour.”
I think that Freeland will be DFA’d.