{"id":418722,"date":"2025-11-06T13:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T13:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/418722\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T13:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T13:55:10","slug":"cubs-kyle-tucker-gets-418-million-contract-projection-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/418722\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs’ Kyle Tucker gets $418 million contract projection update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cubs’ Kyle Tucker gets $418 million contract projection update<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ever since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signed his mega contract extension in April, there was no question who the highest-paid free agent in the 2025 class would be.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The only questions remained exactly how much Kyle Tucker would get, and where he would end up.<\/p>\n

The time has arrived for the MLB world to find out both of those answers. Free agency is open, and the bidding war for Tucker can commence.<\/p>\n

It’s certainly going to cost a pretty penny. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel<\/a> projects Tucker to sign an 11-year contract worth a total value of $418 million.<\/p>\n

McDaniel doesn’t predict a team outcome, although the Chicago Cubs<\/a> will likely be in the running to retain Tucker while the likes of the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> and San Francisco Giants<\/a> pursue him.<\/p>\n

“Tucker has been very consistent (he has the 11th-best WAR and is the\u00a0ninth-best hitter\u00a0in baseball since 2021) and has been lauded since early in his high school career for his pretty left-handed swing and big power, going fifth in the 2015 draft,” McDaniel writes. “That’s the kind of long track record and consistency (read: high floor, low bust potential) teams look for when they’re making giant investments. The risk for a corner outfielder who will be 30 years old in the second season of his deal is that he could athletically fall off a cliff in the middle of this contract. Tucker is insulated from that concern a bit because he has a track record of being above average on the basepaths and defensively despite below-average top-end speed and only solid-average bat speed. He relies more on feel and precision than pure tools, thus the thinking is he’ll age better than the generic very good corner outfielder.”<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Cubs’ weird decision turned Shota Imanaga into an unexpected free agent<\/a><\/p>\n

Tucker’s bumpy second half to the season could concern teams a bit, but he was also playing through injury, and so it’s probably fair to take that with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n

He’s also likely helped by being far and away the best player available right now. That should drive his cost up.<\/p>\n

Even if Tucker isn’t worth every dollar of his deal, he seems a safe bet to be a strong big leaguer for years to come. He’ll get the job done in the heart of any order.<\/p>\n

Someone is going to pay him a lot of money to do that.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Shane Bieber shocked baseball with his $16 million contract decision<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cubs’ Kyle Tucker gets $418 million contract projection update originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,24,58605,24907,29,57,4,66,1271,770,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-418722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago-cubs","10":"tag-contract-worth","11":"tag-kiley-mcdaniel","12":"tag-kyle-tucker","13":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-san-francisco-giants","16":"tag-shane-bieber","17":"tag-shota-imanaga","18":"tag-vladimir-guerrero-jr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115503100994596123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}