The Chicago Cubs knew from the moment they agreed to acquire outfielder Kyle Tucker from the Houston Astros this winter that they were taking a risk. The whole reason a player as good as Tucker was on the trade block to begin with is because he's just one year away from free agency, and 29-year-olds with 30/30 ability tend to do pretty well for themselves on the open market. Houston wasn't confident that it could pony up enough to keep its homegrown star, so they decided to make that Chicago's problem instead.
Of course, it's a pretty good problem to have, one that Cubs fans will more than likely be grateful for as Tucker shines in Chicago this summer. But it puts a whole heck of a lot of pressure on the team to win big this year, and on lead executive Jed Hoyer (or the Ricketts family, depending on your perspective) to pay up enough to keep Tucker on the North Side for the long haul.
Getting Tucker to agree to a contract extension, much less fend off 29 other teams in free agency, always figured to be a daunting task. And it doesn't help when other GMs around the league are doing his negotiating for him.
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Rival executives aren't looking to do the Cubs a favor ahead of Kyle Tucker free agency
ESPN's Jesse Rogers wrote a profile of Tucker this week, and after extolling the many virtues of his game, things naturally turned to the subject of his impending free agency. At which point an unnamed peer of Hoyer's decided to go rogue and set a floor for negotiations for no apparent reason.
"The numbers are crazy these days but if he has a Tucker-like year, how can he not command $400 million or more?" an "executive of a small-market team" told Rogers. "I'm not saying this either way, but some people believe he's better than Soto."
You're not saying, but you're just saying! Classic. Of course, the anonymous exec isn't exactly wrong here: Tucker could very well command north of $400 million, his age, his talent and the teams that will be interested in his services. But front offices don't say things to reporters just for the sake of saying them, even anonymously. Everything has an angle, and it's pretty clear what the angle here is: Make clear to Tucker's camp that they shouldn't settle for anything less than top dollar.
Which is great news for other potential suitors around the league. Even if Tucker loves his year in Chicago, he's likely to cost something exponentially more than the Cubs have ever spent on a free agent, a record currently held by the $184 million deal handed out to Jason Heyward back in the winter of 2015. tucker obviously isn't Soto — who is? — and teams won't treat him that way. But he and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will be neck and neck in next year's free-agent class, and it behooves just about everybody not named the Cubs to make signing him cost as much as possible.