When it comes to the Los Angeles Dodgers, nothing’s shocking. Yet their usual ritual come wintertime somehow manages to leave the baseball world agape.
It becomes a little blurry, Mookie Betts giving way to Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani, which begets an entrance from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, triggering the arrival of Blake Snell and then, say, a hood ornament or two picked up along the way, like Teoscar Hernandez or Tyler Glasnow or Edwin Diaz.
Nine wintertime acquisitions since 2020, collectively guaranteed $1.56 billion in salary, all playing massive roles in back-to-back World Series titles.
This time, sated and spent, they’d surely back away from the trough, right?
Well, fool us 10 times, shame on us.
This is a deal that should reverberate for years. Let’s break down the most shocking elements of this California earthquake:
Kyle Tucker: Short on years, big on salary
Tucker celebrates his 29th birthday Jan. 17 – happy birthday, Kyle! – which puts him in an interesting bucket, age-wise, for an elite bat reaching free agency. He’s not Harper-Machado-Soto young, nor is he Alonso-Bregman-Schwarber old.
Still, your first big bite at free agency is usually your best. Tucker’s age and resume – four-time All-Star, two-time Silver Slugger, 27.3 WAR – would seem to spare him the draft-pick compensation anvil that dragged down the Alonsos and Bregmans in securing a long-term deal a year ago.
And while Tucker has opt-out clauses after seasons two and three, there’s also significant unknowns on the horizon.
Labor trouble could wipe out part of the 2027 season. Tucker will turn 31 before the 2029 season, which would be his first year on the market after an opt-out, and he’d be hitting the market at 32, going on 33, if he plays out all four years of this deal.
Additionally, shin and finger injuries, respectively, limited Tucker to 78 and 136 games the past two seasons. It might have seemed prudent to accept a structure that guaranteed Tucker well north of $300 million over, say, a decade, never again having to worry about free agency.
But Tucker has been betting on himself for a long time.
He resisted extension overtures dating back early in his career with the Houston Astros. Owner Jim Crane, averse to giving out massive deals to retain his own players in free agency, got ahead of it by dealing Tucker to the Cubs.
Tucker responded with 22 homers, 25 steals, an .841 OPS and a 2025 playoff berth for Wrigleyville. We gather he’ll be just fine on his next deal.
Yet the short-term, massive AAV deals have been bandied about for years, with Bryce Harper, for one, presented with a similar structure from the Dodgers in 2019. It’s just surprising to see someone jump on it.
Steve Cohen’s Mets: Outbid
Goodness, that would have been some corner outfield: Juan Soto and his $765 million deal in right field, and Tucker’s $50 million annual salary in left. Or vice versa. Whatever. The Mets would have kicked ass.
Alas, bottomless-pocketed owner Steve Cohen could not add the biggest free agent pelt to his wall two years in a row.
When it was reported two days ago Cohen offered Tucker a $50 million salary, it seemed the Mets had the market cornered on a short-term deal. Perhaps they’d lose out to, say, the Toronto Blue Jays if the Jays came forth with the more “conventional” package in excess of $300 million over many years.
Instead, the Mets’ best-and-final offer came in at four years, $220 million, according to the New York Post, their offer bumped to $55 million yet not quite enough to catch the Dodgers at the tape.
Seems Cohen had a ceiling with Tucker, whereas he clearly was going to go as high as necessary with Soto. Ah, well. Now club president David Stearns will have to deftly pivot, the roster now looking very much incomplete as we enter the home stretch of the offseason.
Dodgers veterans: Underpaid
Inflation’s tough, man.
While Tucker did not dislodge Ohtani from baseball’s highest annual salary – Ohtani’s $70 million over 10 years still reigns supreme – he’ll certainly take home a lot more pay, sooner, than the game’s greatest player ever and four-time MVP.
Famously, Ohtani deferred $680 million of his $700 million package, the better to position the Dodgers for free agent strikes like this one. He’s bringing home just $2 million a year, while Tucker’s deal defers $30 million, only slightly dinging the present value.
Mookie Betts? He’s pulling in an average of $31 million a year. Freddie Freeman? A mere $27 million per – and expiring after 2027.
Oh, they won’t be digging for change anytime soon. But perhaps Tucker might be compelled to pick up the check for the lads every so often.
The game: Not dead!
Yeah, those rumblings of a salary cap and ruminations that the Dodgers are Ruining Baseball were really a deterrent, eh?
Yes, the Tucker situation certainly isn’t ideal when it comes to spreading the talent around. At the same time, consider his finalists: The Dodgers, Mets and probably the Blue Jays. Big-market clubs, sure, but also well-run and motivated to win.
The Tucker investment was nothing that the Giants, Phillies, Yankees, Braves, Nationals, Red Sox, Angels, Mariners, Rangers, Cubs – even Tucker’s old Astros – couldn’t handle at various points in their competitive arcs. Destinations are created, not simply forged by opening a checkbook once in a while.
Tucker wanted to be a Dodger, just like Ohtani and Yamamoto, who turned down identical deals elsewhere. Just like Rōki Sasaki, who could’ve procured a larger signing bonus somewhere else.
Sure, this all doesn’t go down any easier for some lower-revenue clubs (there’s no such thing as a small market in the big leagues, see). At the same time, some franchises are born on third base. Sometimes you’re Arsenal, other times you’re Wolverhampton.
It doesn’t make your division any less winnable, your ticket to the playoffs any less valid. And when teams like the Dodgers are good, so, too, are the industry revenues borne of high attendance, record global ratings – and the revenue sharing that comes with that.
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