EXCITING Kyle Tucker Update – Are The Blue Jays Making A Case For The Biggest Free Agent?

EXCITING Kyle Tucker Update – Are The Blue Jays Making A Case For The Biggest Free Agent?

Hello everybody and welcome into Blue Jays today where we always have something to say about the Toronto Blue Jays. Coming to you from the sports interaction studio, I’m your host Nicholas Playalong and I’m your host Adam Pedal. And today guys, we’ve got some pretty exciting Kyle Tucker updates. Last night it was reported that Kyle Tucker visited the Blue Jays Florida Complex facility. Now, I know a lot of people when they hear that, they’re going to get flashbacks to show Otani. And I’m going to tell you right now, it is exactly like that. The number one free agent on the market has visited the Blue Jays Florida complex facility. We’re going to get into what exactly does that mean and where are the Blue Jays right now in terms of the Kyle Tucker market. Yo, quick question. Quick question for you. This is just for Russ. Uh, how many comments down below do you think we’re going to get saying he’s on a plane? Um, I’m going to say, now that you say that, Now that I’ve said it, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over under 14 and a half. I’m actually serious. I mean, even if I didn’t wasn’t a regular commentator, I would start commenting that right now. I will give you my answer at the end of this podcast to not influence what it is that I think is going to happen. But I honestly, this is exciting. Now, I I don’t want to go so far to freak out and say that he’s on the plane and say he’s coming here cuz that’s not what this means. But when he is going and when he is visiting the facilities of the Toronto Blue Jays, at the very least, the one thing that we know for sure is that he is engaging with Toronto and Toronto is certainly serious about engaging with him. Yeah, absolutely, guys. So, let’s get into it right now. Uh, hit that like button, smash that subscribe button if you haven’t done so already. This was the initial report by Robert Murray that yes, he was spotted at the Blue Jays facility. But like you were kind of mentioning, like all that really does confirm for me is that yes, like we are a contender for Kyle Tucker. All those rumors out there, they weren’t just rumors for a reason. They were actual facts. Like the Blue Jays coming off a World Series appearance, spending a lot of money, having a big budget to spend, Kyle Tucker being a big free agent. like yeah obviously the Blue Jays would be on there and then being Kyle Tucker you know he actually lives in Florida and if my contending or this team that wants me and is buying for my services I would go and visit the facility it would be it’d be negligent of me not to go do that it is it is standard practice and Ben Nicholson Smith came out I don’t think that he’s necessarily pouring cold water on any of these rumors he’s just giving context for it says a visit does indicate that the Blue Jays are genuinely involved with Tucker But it’s also a relatively standard part of recruiting a high-profile free agent and doesn’t mean Tucker’s anywhere near making a decision. It would be a surprise if Tucker didn’t also visit some other rumored suitors such as the Yankees, Dodgers, or Phillies as his market develops. Again, standard practice. If you are on the precipice of signing a contract for the next 10 years of your life for hundreds of millions of dollars, obviously you are going to want to take a look at where it is you’re going to be working, right? What is this going to look like? And in fact, I would go so far to assume or expect that if this gets really serious, you might even hear about him flying to Toronto and seeing some of that, which would of course then be the plane streaming. Yeah. Yeah. I hope that honestly here comes more plain comments. If that if that does happen, if he does end up coming to Toronto and taking a look at the Rogers and everything, don’t report it. Please no longer report it. I don’t want to know about I don’t want to know, man. Unless he literally is about to only if he’s like literally signed, you know what I mean? Like then I want to hear about it. But yeah, obviously the Blue Jays, we’ve talked about this time and time again where they are in their current market. they’ve already spent $256 million or committed to this off season. And then you’re looking at Kyle Tucker. Well, how much is he going to get paid? Well, probably around that $400 million mark, you’re looking at guy probably $40 million a year. And when you’re looking at the Blue Jays right now, that’s going to jump them up in payroll. Now, this is 2026 active payroll. The expected payroll for the Blue Jays is around that 270 mark. So, by adding Kyle Tucker, you’re looking at 310, which and if you do all the math with all these other guys when they all jump up, that’s right there with the LA Dodgers. I brought this up in a video room yesterday, like how just kind of crazy that is that, you know, now the Blue Jays are jumping up in the te in the tears of the Dodgers and the tears of the Yankees and the Mets. How crazy is that for you? Well, I’ll tell you what, it’s a real full circle moment for me because when we first started doing this podcast, there was a plethora of comments that regularly came in saying, “Blue Jays will never spend. They never get the guy. They don’t do that.” Well, I look at this statist right here and they’re number two. So, obviously that has changed and they’re now entertaining Kyle Tucker and they’re still going to be entertaining Bobette. So, it is very it’s a very good place to be and I’m very happy that Toronto has has killed that narrative, put that behind them. They are a team that spends. Now, let’s take a moment here and talk about why this might make sense for Toronto and why I am actually starting to feel a little bit of excitement right here. Keegan Matson came out with a great article as he does talking about this whole situation and similarly to Ben Nicholson Smith made it very clear off of the top that he lives in Tampa Bay and he’s obviously going to want to look into all of these facilities. So doesn’t mean a deal is imminent. Doesn’t mean anything like that. But then took a look at it from the Toronto Blue Jays perspective. Is it crazy for them to be spending all of this money? Sure. But looking over at who’s coming off of the books relatively soon, Dalton Vo, he’s going to be a free agent after 2026. Do we sign him back? Do we not? I don’t know. Kind of a weird situation with D Maro. Don’t know. I really don’t know what I’d value him at right now. If I’m the Toronto Blue Jays Springer, probably the first season. Yeah. Going to be leaving after this season. Probably not going to be coming back either, right? He’s he’s getting an old man and you can’t expect him to have like a 900 plus OPS, right? Yeah. Yeah. Not every year. not OPS+, but just OPS in general over 900. Like that’s you can’t expect that at the age that he is. If he does it again, like I mean then we’ll have that conversation. But as of right now, you’re looking at two fun like foundational pillars that Blue Jays have had for a long time being Don Vo and George Springer leaving after 2026 or right now leaving after 2026. Same conversation we’ve been having with the starting pitching. You have Kevin Gosman leaving. You already just had Chris Basset leave, right? And then Jose Brio’s question marks surrounding him. So why not go and do what you did back in 2021 by adding George Springer, building that pillar. You could do the same thing with Kyle Tucker in the outfield and he isn’t too half bad defensively either like that. So if you lose Don Baro, sure I do believe Don Baro is a better defender, but Kyle Tucker is a very good one in his own right. And ultimately just from an overall wins above replacement, if you’re, you know, inclined to to like that statistic, clearly Kyle Tucker is the way to go. Now, if we don’t if we want to go a little bit into fantasy land, I put out what the lineup would look like with Kyle Tucker in it. It is awesome, guys. Like, it is actually just stupidly good. Next to everybody’s names is their OPS in 2025. So, you know, obviously that will change as time goes on, but if everyone just did what they did last year, maybe not Santandere would love to see a bit more from him, but if everybody just did what they did last year and you put in Kyle Tucker and it’s a pretty easy swap. All I did was take Nathan Lucas out and then Kyle Tucker goes and I’m sorry Nathan Lucas, but ultimately you would have to lose your spot to Kyle Tucker. That’s just how it would go. But that lineup, that top, you know, honestly top eight even. Yeah. With Ernie down there. I mean, it is just so stacked top to bottom. That right there, it was already a World Series caliber lineup. That’s a That’s a god tier caliber line. I I would absolutely agree. And I think Kyle Tucker being in Toronto and being the type of hitter that he is, that is contact first, power is the addition that I think he would thrive absolutely with our hitting coaches and our hitting staff. Look at what the Blue Jays did last year. I mean, you don’t you don’t need me to tell you, you watch the entire season. Him, I think he would take a step up as well. And then I I’m curious to see, not to derail the conversation, a full year from Santon Deere, that lineup will be popping. Now I also just to jump in there too from a skill standpoint. I you know that I’m very outspoken about this. Love the stolen base capability provides 25 last year. Yeah. Right there in the two-hole. Now I know it’s going to be tough when you got Vlatty there and you got some big thumpers. You might not not want to do it. But if you’re in a situation where you got to go and get second, get a runner in scoring position late in a ball game. You can absolutely do that. Now kind of getting us back to reality grounding here. What should we expect over the next couple weeks? Because we got winter meetings coming up. I know that we’ve talked about this on another podcast. Kyle Schwarber probably going to sign first because when you’re looking at the other competitors that Ben Nicholson Smith brings up, he brings up the Phillies. So, they’re probably waiting right now. Okay, if we can’t get Kyle Schwarber back, then we’re going to definitely be on the Tucker market. What do you expect right now to happen with the Blue Jays and Kyle Tucker market? Where do you think you’re where do you expect him to go right now? Well, realistically, he just visited Toronto. If he hasn’t already visited those other organizations, he is bound to do so. And it would be irresponsible for him to make a decision about his future without doing his due diligence with New York, with LA, with Philadelphia, with whomever else is in the market for him. So you might see some reports that Kyle Tucker is on a plane to New York and going to go check out the Yankee Stadium and everything like that. But, you know, similarly to how we’re responding to this, take it with a grain of salt. That’s a man right now that’s about to get generationally wealthy and he is doing his research on where he’s going to spend the remainder of his career. So, I expect that to happen and I think that you’re going to hear a lot about that over the winter meetings because clearly there’s going to be a lot of meetings with Kyle Tucker. I think that I don’t know I’ll be honest. I don’t know if he’s going to be a winter meeting signing from where we’re at right now. just feels like there’s so many conversations that he has to have right now because he’s probably gonna have to have multiple sitdown meetings with Toronto probably will transpire over the winter meetings and will likely have those sitdown meetings with five or six other squads. Yeah, Kyle Schwarber feels like there’s a couple less suitors for him. So, if he wants to get off the board first, I’m all here for it because then that just means hopefully Philadelphia gets him back one less individual in this race. But if not, we we’re pretty clear as to what Kyle Tucker’s market will look like. That’s a good point because a lot of people are in on Kyle Tucker. Whereas before, like with Show Otani, for example, it would became very clear like it was Blue Jays, Dodgers, and it was like those guys are the only suitors during the winter meetings back two years ago. Whereas right now, we’re approaching winter meetings and we haven’t really we haven’t heard a whole lot of developing, you know, you people getting knocked out, offers being thrown at him. All we’ve heard is he’s visited the Blue Jays complex and then that’s it. So, I expect over the next couple weeks we’re going to see some more news pop up about him visiting, like you said, other teams and maybe some offers being thrown out there. I think winter meetings are going to be good time to negotiate and then I expect probably before Christmas is when he’ll probably sign after all those negotiations. Now, I’ll leave Blue Jays fans with this and this is why personally I’m feeling relatively optimistic about this whole thing. Going back to that entire payroll by all MLB teams, if you can flash that up for us. Uh, a lot of the squads that are up there, a lot of the usual suspects that Toronto loses out to, and I’m talking about LA, I’m talking about the New York Mets, and I’m talking about the New York Yankees. It feels like the level of motivation from them to go and get Kyle Tucker is lesser this year than it has been in the past with Juan Sodto, with Show Otani, with Aaron Judge, with you name it cuz they always seemingly get them. It feels like that motivation is less. Reports coming out of the Yankees side of things is they’re going to be spending less money. The New York Mets, they just paid $760 million for their outfielder. Are they about to invest another 450 into another one? That feels crazy. And then LA, I mean, listen, I know that LA is capable of anything, but another $400 million contract. That feels ridiculous. It just doesn’t seem possible. And I’ll put it simply, it’s the Toronto Blue Jays turn. It’s their turn to get the big fish. And everything feels like the stars are aligning. It feels like Kyle Tucker is right there. Now, I’m not guaranteeing it, but I mean, why not? Why not the Blue Jays? Like, what? What in this? You know, you have all these other The only thing that’s telling me why not is the PTSD, but every other off season, it’s always been okay. Like, everyone always felt like the Juan was going to the Mets. Everyone kind of just felt that. There was no genuine report that he was interested. It was just like he felt like he was going to the Mets. Same thing with Showy Otani to the Dodgers. This off season, total nonbias. Everyone’s thinking Blue Jays. Everyone’s thinking Blue Jays. And then what what happens eventually goes to Blue Jays. So I’m throwing it out there for good luck for for Ross Atkins and the boys. So hopefully we get it across the deal is not imminent. There’s a lot of hoops to jump through here, but still exciting updates nonetheless. And uh and things are panning out, I would argue, the way that Toronto wants them to. Folks, hit that like, smash that subscribe button, let us know your thoughts about all this in the comments down below. $4 a month become a YouTube membership. Thank you to all of our current YouTube members. You guys are amazing. And also it was an undeniable smashing the over on 14 and a half. I’m thinking it’s going to be closer to like 30. 30. Let’s see. Let’s see it chat. Guys, thank you so much for watching and as always, go Jays go.

It’s deja vu all over again… A big time free agent is visiting the Blue Jays Florida Complex. For the first time since Shohei Ohtani. Only this time, the vibes are different. The Blue Jays feel like they are the favorites for Kyle Tucker, so is it going to be any different this time around? Let’s discuss right here on Blue Jays Today!

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