On Wednesday, the Dodgers made the Kyle Tucker signing official and held a press conference to welcome the newest Dodger.
Tucker, a seemingly quiet guy, joins a team full of larger-than-life players, including
the Best Player on the Planet. The outfielder is now second only to Shohei Ohtani on the Dodgers payroll and is now also ‘just one of the guys’ in a lineup full of Guys.
Manager Dave Roberts indicated on Wednesday that while final decisions have not been made, he intends to tuck Kyle into either the second or third in the batting order. He also said that Tucker will play right field, while Teoscar Hernandez will move over to play left.
The Dodgers did what they felt they had to do to shore up their outfield, their only real weakness. The Dodgers made a more appealing pitch to the biggest free agent on the market, and who wouldn’t want to join the team that just won back-to-back World Series and don’t have much in a change in personnel to run it back a third time?
“I mean, this lineup is pretty good regardless” of his place in it, Tucker said. “I’m excited to be a part of the group and just try and pick the brains of the guys in the clubhouse and see what makes them better. And you know, they might do stuff that I might not do and vice versa, and we can just kind of build each other up.”
Tucker said all the right words in his presser on Wednesday, an awe shucks take on joining a burgeoning dynasty, as Mirjam Swanson states so well in her article.
Bill Plunkett expands on this in his article, how Tucker was the perfect guy to round out the 2026 Dodgers.
“Throughout the offseason we’ve talked a lot about how high the talent bar was of this current club, and how there’d only be a few available players that we felt would be real needle-movers when it comes to bringing another championship to Los Angeles,” General Manager Brandon Gomes said. “Kyle Tucker is at the very top of that group, and one of the most complete players in all of baseball.”
Tucker joins Andy Pages as the only position player under the age of 30, but just barely at the age of 29. It’s obvious that the Dodgers are making the most of their window with this core team, and are determined to be the most recent team to win three World Series in a row.
