{"id":277358,"date":"2025-11-11T23:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T23:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/277358\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T23:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T23:53:14","slug":"latest-on-dodgers-kyle-tucker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/277358\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest On Dodgers, Kyle Tucker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Tucker<\/a> is the top free agent in this year\u2019s class. That more or less guarantees that he\u2019ll be linked to the two-time defending champions. Jon Heyman of The New York Post wrote last month<\/a> that the Dodgers were likely to make a run at Tucker this offseason.<\/p>\n

That may well be the case, but Jeff Passan of ESPN<\/a> writes that the Dodgers don\u2019t seem inclined to make a decade-long commitment to the star outfielder. Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic<\/a> wrote last night that while the Dodgers aren\u2019t ruling out a Tucker pursuit, they\u2019re also not opposed to making a short-term outfield move while awaiting the arrival of internal reinforcements.<\/p>\n

In the short term, the Dodgers\u2019 biggest weaknesses are the outfield and late-inning relief.\u00a0Michael Conforto<\/a> certainly won\u2019t be back after his one-year free agent deal busted.\u00a0Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a>, their primary left fielder in the postseason, is also a free agent. Andy Pages<\/a> had a poor second half that carried into a dreadful playoffs.\u00a0Tommy Edman<\/a> battled an ankle injury late in the season that led the Dodgers to prefer him at second base. (He\u2019s undergoing surgery<\/a> and is expected to be full go for Spring Training.) Even\u00a0Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> was a relative weak point in right field. He hit .247\/.284\/.454 while playing very poor defense.<\/p>\n

Assuming the Dodgers intend to keep\u00a0Mookie Betts<\/a> at shortstop, the outfield isn\u2019t currently in great shape. It\u2019d probably line up with Pages, Edman and Hern\u00e1ndez as the primary options.\u00a0Alex Call<\/a> and\u00a0Ryan Ward<\/a> \u2014 the latter of whom was just added to the 40-man roster to keep him out of minor league free agency \u2014 could platoon in left field if the Dodgers want Edman in the infield.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll need to make some kind of external acquisition, but it\u2019s understandable if they don\u2019t want to make an extended free agent play. The long-term outfield picture is more promising than the current mix. In August, Baseball America<\/a> included four Dodgers outfielders (Josue De Paula<\/a>, Zyhir Hope<\/a>, Mike Sirota<\/a> and Eduardo Quintero<\/a>) among the sport\u2019s top 60 overall prospects. That doesn\u2019t include top catching prospect\u00a0Dalton Rushing<\/a>, whose path to playing time behind the plate is blocked by\u00a0Will Smith<\/a>. Rushing didn\u2019t play any outfield during his rookie season but has logged a little less than 300 career innings as a left fielder in the minors.<\/p>\n

Of the aforementioned prospects, only Rushing will be in the mix for an MLB roster spot early in 2026. Sirota and Quintero have yet to reach Double-A. De Paula and Hope have played a combined 10 games at that level. None of the four have any Triple-A experience. It\u2019s unlikely all four will pan out given the attrition rate of prospects who are that far from the majors, but the Dodgers will want to have long-term opportunities available for each of them.<\/p>\n

The balance could be to turn to the trade market.\u00a0Steven Kwan<\/a>,\u00a0Lars Nootbaar<\/a> (recovering from heel surgeries<\/a>),\u00a0Brendan Donovan<\/a> and Wilyer Abreu<\/a> are among the outfield-capable players who might be available. The Dodgers were tied\u00a0 to Kwan and Donovan at last summer\u2019s deadline. They certainly have the farm system to make a strong offer for a controllable outfielder. Rushing could be a trade chip if the Dodgers don\u2019t feel he\u2019d be an above-average regular in left field, for instance.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers obviously have the spending capacity to make a run at any free agent as well. They\u2019ve generally preferred making shorter-term commitments at huge annual rates to offering decade-long deals, though. They\u2019ve broken that precedent for Shohei Ohtani<\/a> and\u00a0Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a>, but both were special cases. Ohtani is the best player in the world and Yamamoto was a 25-year-old ace. Tucker is an excellent player but not that kind of unique free agent. The Dodgers would probably be more amenable to a five- or six-year deal at a premium AAV if Tucker winds up going that route, but it stands to reason his camp will try to pull a ten-plus year commitment in the early part of the offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyle Tucker is the top free agent in this year\u2019s class. That more or less guarantees that he\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,510,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-277358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-kyle-tucker","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}