The Offseason Monitor: Tucker Gets His Deal, Plus a Three-Team Trade
The latest from a busy offsesason night
The stove is getting hot! Another major domino fell last night with Kyle Tucker landing the largest contract of the winter. Meanwhile, an interesting three-team trade involving the Angels, Reds, and Rays flew under the radar late last night.
Let’s break down both moves and what they mean going forward!
Kyle Tucker Signs 4 Years, $240 Million
Kyle Tucker finally got his mega-deal, agreeing to a four-year, $240 million contract ($30 million is deferred) that cements him among the game’s highest-paid stars. The $60 million AAV immediately jumps off the page, but the shorter term is just as notable—it gives Tucker another chance to re-enter free agency while still in his prime.
Per @JonHeyman, the Mets offered Tucker 4 years, $220 million. Tucker instead goes to LA, where he has a cast of all-stars around him to help carry the load.
Personally, I think this price tag is simply due to the poor position-player free-agent classes coming in the next couple of years. LAD grabbed the best player available for the foreseeable future. His game is just so well-rounded that no one tool is relied upon too heavily. In four of the last five seasons, Kyle has posted an fWar of 4.5+; the only exception was in 2024, when he played in only 78 games and still posted a 4.2 fWar. That kind of production is well worth a payday, not sure if it’s worth $60 million.
Fantasy Impact:
There’s not much projection risk here. Tucker remains a safe first-round anchor in all formats, with elite run production and power totals baked in. The shorter contract doesn’t change his day-to-day value; he’s going to play every day, hit near the top or middle of the lineup, and accumulate volume. In drafts, he belongs firmly in that upper tier of hitters; he is currently trending at ADP 17. A second-round pick who will benefit from his environment.
MLB Data Warehouse has Tucker projected for:
653 PA, .267/.371/.492, 30 HR, 21 SB
Late-Night Three-Team Trade Breakdown
While Tucker dominated the headlines, a three-team trade added some intrigue on the margins:
Angels receive:
→ OF Josh Lowe
Reds receive:
→ LHP Brock Burke
Rays receive:
→ INF Gavin Lux
→ RHP Chris Clark
This deal feels very Rays-coded, even if it doesn’t involve a headline name.
Angels: Buying Low on Josh Lowe
The Angels pick up Josh Lowe, who still has untapped upside despite an uneven recent stretch. When healthy and locked in, Lowe brings left-handed power and athleticism that the Angels sorely need. If he gets every day run, there’s sneaky fantasy value here, especially in deeper formats. His health will play a factor. As we can see, he has never exceeded 501 PA. The Angels have a 4 outfielders on their roster that can rotate through DH reps to get guys off their feet and stay healthy. This will greatly benefit Lowe, Trout, and Soler. Beware, he could platoon if he continues to struggle against lefties.
Reds: Bullpen Depth with Brock Burke
Cincinnati adds Brock Burke as a flexible left-handed arm. He gives them matchup versatility and innings out of the bullpen. This is more about roster stability than upside, and it likely won’t move fantasy needles outside of very deep leagues. Let’s try our pitch movement comps and see if there is underlying value.
A reliever with a four-seam fastball twins to Crochet’s and a changeup extremely similar to Skubal’s?? Sign me up for that all day; there is plus stuff there. His 53.3% GB% in 2025 will play well in Great American Ball Park.
Rays: Typical Rays Value Play
Tampa Bay acquires Gavin Lux and RHP Chris Clark, a classic “change of scenery plus arm” package. Lux still hasn’t fully capitalized on his pedigree, but the Rays have a strong track record of optimizing players like him. Obviously, Lux will fill in the role of Brandon Lowe, who was traded earlier this offseason. He has not homered more than 10 times in a season, nor does he steal bases. I would not draft him, given that he is now in the juggernaut that is the AL East.
Chris Clark was drafted in 2023 in the 5th round from Harvard. He is currently 24 and spent 2025 between A, A+, and AA ball, with the majority in A ball. His stats do not flash anything special, and this is just a project arm the Rays hope to reinvent. Which they are good at.
Final Thoughts
The Tucker signing is the real takeaway here—a superstar getting paid like one. Signing with the Dodgers keeps him squarely in elite fantasy territory.
The three-team trade, meanwhile, is more about depth and upside bets. It’s the kind of move that could quietly pay off for one of these teams by midseason.
Jon’s Take
I’m busting in here; this one is too big for me to let Hunter have all of the words.
The baseball stuff was covered well above. Being on the Dodgers maximizes run + RBI potential. They were sixth in the league last year in plate appearances and second in 2024. The difference between the best and the worst team in the league in PAs last year was 327. That’s 36 more trips to the plate per hitter. Tucker was never going to sign with the worst team in the league, of course, but he’ll project for 15-20 more PAs with LA than he would have if he had signed with a lesser offense (like the METS, haha losers!).
And the repeat champs were third in the league last year in “run scoring efficiency”. I measure that by dividing runs scored into total bases. That gives you some idea of how many runs a double is worth, for exampe. It’s better to hit a double if you’re on the Dodgers than if you’re on the Rockies, because you’re way more likely to have somebody else on base. Here are those ranks:
And that was in a year where the Dodgers weren’t at their best offensively for large stretches of the year. Betts and Freeman were both pretty rough through the middle of the year before they both, conveniently, figured it out in time for the World Series run.
So yeah - news flash, it’s a good landing spot for Tucker’s value. Dodgers Stadium also consistently grades out as a very hitter-friendly park.
That’s five straight years with a HR/Brl way above the league average (which stays between 46% and 50%, unless the year is 2019 and the baseballs are juiced). And I have long suspected that it’s mostly because of the personnel on the Dodgers. They have some dudes, and particularly, they have some dudes that maximize their barrels. In the case of Ohtani, his barrels are just absolute moon shots. But then they have the guys like Betts who are so good with the bat, and they pull the ball down the line at a high rate, and all of that stuff.
But we get a 59% HR/Brl from 2024-2025, even just looking at visiting teams. So it’s not just about the Dodgers’ lineup. It’s legitimately a good park for hitting.
So there, EVEN MORE PROOF that this is a great landing spot for Tucker. If he stays healthy, he’s going to easily put up first-round-worthy fantasy numbers, and you can get him in the second round this year. Maybe that won’t continue to be true after this, but for now, yeah.
But the thing in my head has been more about the reaction to it. We have the doomsdayers saying that this guarantees a 2027 lockout. I don’t understand the full logic there, but I suppose the idea is that it creates more strife between the players and the owners. It will make the small market teams MAD because they can’t possibly compete with the Dodgers (which is largely true, by the way), and that will make them put their foot down on some sort of salary cap. And yeah, that’s valid. The widening gap between the best teams and the worst teams isn’t a good thing for anybody but those best teams.
And look, there’s already talk of BOYCOTTS!
Boycotts are American AF. We gained independence from those Red Coats with the help of some well-coordinated and well-timed boycotts. But that was like 250 years ago now. I’m not sure if a modern day boycott over entertainment has ever actually worked. And 99% of the people who say they would have watched baseball this year if not for this signing are just being emotional and it won’t actually play out that way.
This is the beauty of fantasy sports. You guys know I grew up a Pirates fan. And the problem with being a Pirates fan when you’re a kid is that one day you become an adult and you realize that you’re wasting a lot of time and effort on them. There are so many better things to do with your time than to continually go down the dead-end path that the Pirates take you on. So I pivoted hard to fantasy baseball. I have a lot more control here. The Dodgers can’t take away my enjoyment of fantasy sports, no matter what they do! I don’t care who wins the World Series, all I want is for my imaginary team of stat accruers to accrue more and better stats than the imaginary teams my high school friends put together accrue. MLB Data Warehouse lives and thrives no matter what the real-life standings say. Unless there’s a lockout and they miss games next year, then I take a pretty big hit.
I don’t even really want to start thinking about the 2027 CBA stuff. And I don’t even think there’s any real threat of a missed season. Whenever there are billions of dollars to be made, the two sides will figure things out. But it will be a headache for sure.
Some of the best pieces of life advice I’ve ever seen come from this quote from Samuel Johnson.
If any tiny percentage of your personal happiness is tied to how the Minnesota Twins perform this year, you’re not in a great spot. To take it even further, if you’re the biggest Dodgers fan in the world and you get a ton of your purpose and pleasure from this dynastic run they’re on right now. That will be fun for now, but it will have no lasting impact. It’s still not a great place to be.
But that’s the end of my preaching. My apologies to Hunter for Kool Aid Man-ing his professional work here. We move forward!