If I told you when the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million contract that he would be sitting out a game at home in a high-leverage series against the Milwaukee Brewers in August, would you believe me?
You might, but only if it was injury related. Otherwise, it would sound like a ridiculous prediction given the caliber of player Tucker is. However, he was relegated to the bench, and it had nothing to do with an injury.
In Saturday’s game against the Brewers, the third game of a four-game series between the National League’s heavyweights, Tucker was withheld from the game, and as Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reported, it was due to wildly underwhelming results at the plate and a level of frustration that has accompanied it.
What’s going on?
In his first season with the Dodgers, Tucker has been good on the road. As Ardaya illustrated, Tucker has an .840 OPS when he is away from Dodger Stadium, which is just about on par with his career .844 OPS.
However, when Tucker is in front of the Dodger faithful at home, he is anything but a $240 million player.
Ardaya highlighted that when Tucker is playing at home, his OPS plummets to .566. Because of such a precipitous drop in production, Tucker’s overall OPS heading into Sunday’s series finale was .705, the lowest it has been since his rookie year in 2018.
That has led to the frustration manager Dave Roberts described to Ardaya, and it represents a bigger issue for the Dodgers.
Why it's troublesome
Simply put, this is not the player Los Angeles paid for in free agency.
Tucker was supposed to add additional star power to an already star-studded roster in order to dramatically raise the Dodgers’ chances of securing a third-straight World Series title. Edwin Diaz, their other big offseason acquisition, was supposed to do the same, and neither have been as advertised so far.
Los Angeles made another splash when it added Tarik Skubal at the trade Deadline, and making a move for a back-to-back Cy Young Award Winner might take some of the pressure off Diaz in an injury-stricken, disappointing campaign for the 32-year-old.
However, no one is going to take the pressure off Tucker. There is not another high-level bat getting added to the roster, and the Dodgers are going to need him come October.
Sure, this is a roster that still has Shohei Ohtani, Max Muncy and others, but Tucker’s presence is supposed to be the difference maker. Moreover, Tucker's runway to figure things out is getting smaller.
We are halfway through August, which means that just a month and a half of regular-season baseball remains. There is some time left for Tucker to get it together, but it is going to go quickly.
Whatever frustrations or other mental hurdles that Tucker is dealing with need to be resolved, because while he may be performing well enough on the road right now, what happens if he hits a slump in October? That will make those games at home much more important.
For now, perhaps a reprieve from Tucker’s struggles will prove to be beneficial. Something has to work, and it has to be sooner rather than later.