Kyle Tucker is really going to trigger an MLB lockout? Come on now
This was pretty audacious, even by the Dodgers’ standard. Their $17-million left fielder flopped last year, so they threw $240 million at another corner outfielder to supplement the three most valuable players already in their lineup.
Still, as Kyle Tucker smiled for the cameras at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, it was hard to imagine this one man could sign here and take down the 2027 season.
On Tuesday the Athletic quoted one ownership source that portrayed the Tucker signing as a tipping point that made it “a 100 percent certainty” owners would push for a salary cap when the collective bargaining agreement expires this fall. Owners have been complaining about the Dodgers’ signings of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell and Tanner Scott, and on and on, and it sounds silly that the signing of one Kyle Daniel Tucker would turn the owners in a direction many of them already indicated they want to go.
“I agree,” said the man who signed him, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman.
If baseball comes up with new rules next year, the Dodgers will abide by them. Until then, Friedman said, their “only focus” is on delivering the best possible product to the fans who pack Dodger Stadium every night and shop the team store like crazy. In return, he said, the Dodgers can sell themselves to stars like Tucker.
“A destination spot is where players and their families feel incredibly well taken care of,” Friedman said. “If they’re playing in front of 7,000 people, they don’t feel that as much.
“Playing in front of 50,000 people, and seeing the passion and how much people live and die for the Dodgers each summer and each October, I think, adds to the experience and allure of playing here.”
He also said this, which might infuriate some fans and perhaps some owners outside Los Angeles: “This isn’t just about, let’s spend a lot of money.”
If the Dodgers’ spending habits border on satire to you, well, the Onion got there first. Two decades ago, when fake news actually meant fake, the Onion ran this headline: “Yankees Ensure 2003 Pennant By Signing Every Player In Baseball.”
The Yankees led the major leagues in payroll that year and for the next 10 years. They won the World Series once in that span, in 2009. They have not won since.
So, when the Dodgers splurged last winter, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner offered a measured response.
“It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kind of things that they’re doing,” Steinbrenner told YES Network. “We’ll see if it pays off.”
It did. The Dodgers won their second consecutive World Series. They made more money on ticket sales alone in 2024 than roughly half the 30 teams made in total revenue. Same for their local television revenue.
There’s more: an estimated $200 million in sponsorship revenue last year — thank you, Shohei. In all they took in an estimated $1 billion last year — an MLB record — meaning they spent close to $600 million in player payroll and luxury taxes and still made money.
At that level the cries that owners of other teams should just spend more start to ring a bit hollow. They should spend more, of course. But the issue is how to persuade owners to spend another $100 million when the Dodgers still might outspend them by $300 million.
The Yankees can do the kind of things the Dodgers do, and the San Diego Padres have shown how fans in a small market turn out when an owner is more concerned with winning than profit. However, the implosion of cable and satellite television means that local media revenues have cratered for teams outside large markets.
More than half of MLB teams never have paid anyone the $240 million the Dodgers committed to Tucker. The Dodgers committed even more to Ohtani, Yamamoto and Mookie Betts.
The owners could agree that teams should share more revenue, with luxury tax penalties not just in cash but also in restrictions that would hamper the ability to compete, something more significant than the loss of a couple of draft picks.
But that Tucker deal: The Dodgers committed $64 million in a signing bonus — never mind the salary! — to a player they arguably did not need. Owners will be very happy to argue the luxury tax has failed and only a salary cap will stop the Dodgers and New York Mets.
Kyle Tucker’s contract includes a $64-million signing bonus.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
This was part of that Onion satire in 2003: “Yankees manager Joe Torre, whose pitching rotation prior to the mass signing lacked a clear seventh ace, now has the luxury of starting each of his hurlers twice a season.
“ ‘As they say, you can never have enough pitching in this league,’ Torre said.”
Let’s see: Yamamoto, Ohtani, Snell, Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan. That might be six aces. And, since you never can have enough pitching: Ben Casparius, Kyle Hurt, Landon Knack, River Ryan, Gavin Stone, Justin Wrobleski. There might be a seventh ace in there, or on the trade market during the coming year.
A salary cap would provide cost certainty that likely would enable owners to sell teams for more money. Whether a salary cap would solve the issue of competitive balance is questionable — in the capped NFL, the AFC championship game has included either the New England Patriots or Kansas City Chiefs for 15 consecutive years — but that would be the owners’ pitch.
So would this: You could compete with the Yankees for the first two decades of this century, but you just can’t compete with these Dodgers, even if that reflects less on payroll and more on management, a dash of October randomness, and that horrendous fifth inning of Game 5 of the 2024 World Series.
In 1994, when owners called off the World Series rather than surrender their pursuit of a salary cap, the following season started a month late, and even then the owners did not get a cap. If they really want a cap, baseball insiders say, the owners will have to vow to stick together and support doing what the NHL owners did to secure one: calling off an entire season.
For the Dodgers and their fans, that is someone else’s problem, at least for this year. In Los Angeles, the prevailing question is not “Salary cap?” but “Three-peat?”
Tucker likely will bat “second or third” in the Dodgers’ lineup, manager Dave Roberts said. He’ll better the defense by playing right field, allowing Teoscar Hernández to move to left field.
Of all the potential offseason acquisitions the Dodgers discussed, Friedman said, “There was really nobody that moved our World Series odds for 2026 more than Kyle Tucker.”
I asked Tucker how he felt about supposedly having so much power that his signing could shut down what owners say is a troubled sport.
“I think baseball is in a good spot,” Tucker said. “We have phenomenal attendance around the world. … Fans are being very supportive of their teams and their players and their organizations. I think it’s a good thing having that interaction with everyone, and I think it’s just going to grow the game from there, as long as we can — as a league and as players — continue growing the fan base.”
Ohtani and the Dodgers are rock stars, as evidenced by the team selling out of $253 seats next to the on-field stage at the annual fan festival next week.
The players will not be playing. They will appear for short interviews with team broadcasters.
Seats in the stands are available from $28 to $153, for an event that was free three years ago. While fans and owners of other teams complain, the Dodgers shake it off and find ways to make even more money.
Life is good when you’re the champions. Enjoy it this year, Dodgers fans. If a lockout is happening next January, as it likely will be, the fan festival will not be happening.
