{"id":528972,"date":"2026-01-20T11:45:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T11:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/528972\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T11:45:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T11:45:53","slug":"l-a-dodgers-sign-kyle-tucker-pushing-team-past-2b-in-guaranteed-player-salaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/528972\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Dodgers sign Kyle Tucker, pushing team past $2B in guaranteed player salaries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">LF Kyle Tucker, the \u201cconsensus best player available\u201d in MLB free agency, \u201cagreed to join the Dodgers on Thursday,\u201d according to sources cited by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/47625742\/sources-dodgers-land-prized-free-agent-kyle-tucker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/47625742\/sources-dodgers-land-prized-free-agent-kyle-tucker\">ESPN.com<\/a>. Sources noted Tucker\u2019s deal is for four years at $240M and \u201cincludes opt-outs after the second and third seasons.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">The Dodgers \u201chardly ever reward opt-outs\u201d under President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman, but they \u201cmade a similar concession for\u201d P Yoshinobu Yamamoto two offseasons ago and \u201cultimately &#8230; that helped them beat out\u201d the Mets\u202fand Blue Jays for Tucker. A source added the deal also comes with $30M deferred. That gives it a \u201cpresent-day average annual value of\u201d $57.1M, a record, beating Mets RF Juan Soto\u2018s $51M AAV. Because the Dodgers \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/10\/24\/clark-impact-of-possible-dodgers-repeat-on-labor-negotiation-just-chatter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/10\/24\/clark-impact-of-possible-dodgers-repeat-on-labor-negotiation-just-chatter\/\">are already on track to exceed MLB\u2019s highest luxury tax threshold<\/a> in 2026,\u201d prompting a 110% average, Tucker will cost them $119.9M annually (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/47625742\/sources-dodgers-land-prized-free-agent-kyle-tucker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ESPN.com, 1\/15<\/a>). <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">After news broke of the Tucker signing,\u202fSpotrac co-founder and editor Michael Ginnitti revealed that \u201cwith deferred payments, the Dodgers now have\u201d $2.11B in \u201cguaranteed salary on their books\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/16\/sports\/dodgers-have-staggering-2-11-billion-on-books-after-kyle-tucker-signing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">N.Y. POST, 1\/16<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LF Kyle Tucker, the \u201cconsensus best player available\u201d in MLB free agency, \u201cagreed to join the Dodgers on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,6035,39,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-528972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-deals","10":"tag-dodgers","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-dodgers","13":"tag-ladodgers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangelesdodgers","18":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115927265067190346","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528972","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=528972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}