Jed Hoyer after acquiring Kyle Tucker: It was time for Cubs to consolidate WAR at a single position with a star player
(670 The Score) As president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer explained it, the calculus for the Cubs in acquiring star outfielder Kyle Tucker was simple.
"We talked all summer, you guys asked me a lot of questions about the roster and how it's constructed," Hoyer said Tuesday on a Zoom call. "We have a lot of really good players on the team, we're very balanced, but it did feel like we lacked that consolidation of WAR, I would say, on our roster in one player. And obviously, Tucker is just one of the best players in baseball, period. Obviously, to acquire a player like that, it comes at a real price, but it's a price we were willing to pay given the fact that was something we felt all summer we lacked and something we really wanted to bring to this team."
Last Friday, the Cubs traded third baseman Isaac Paredes, right-hander Hayden Wesneski and third-base prospect Cam Smith for the 27-year-old Tucker, a three-time All-Star who has a career .870 OPS and is well-rounded in every area of the game. He hit .289 with 23 homers, 49 RBIs and a .993 OPS in 78 games in 2024, when he was sidelined for a long stretch with a shin fracture. He posted a 4.7 WAR in essentially a half-season.
Tucker was fifth in the American League MVP race in 2023, when he hit .284 with 29 homers, 112 RBIs, 30 stolen bases and an .886 OPS in 157 games.
Hoyer's first conversation with Astros general manager Dana Brown about Tucker's availability came in November shortly after the GM Meetings concluded. They ramped up the discussions from there and then finalized the deal a couple days after the Winter Meetings ended last week.
"There's a finite number of ways that we can really improve as a team, especially on the position player side," Hoyer said. "Because in order to get a player that's better than our internal replacement level, you have to go fairly high. We have a lot of good players. We're very balanced. So there's just not that many players out there that were available that we felt like, 'OK, this player clearly makes us a better team, he provides something we don't have.' Obviously, Tucker provides that. So that was a big part of the impetus of doing the trade."
Tucker is under contract through 2025, and the expectation across the MLB landscape is that he'll enter free agency next offseason rather than work out a long-term extension before then. Hoyer largely brushed aside a couple questions about Tucker's future beyond 2025, saying there was no reason to speculate at this time. He did acknowledge he'll have discussions with Tucker's agent.
"I don't know what the future holds, but obviously Chicago sells itself really well," Hoyer said. "Like I said, I'm excited to bring him in for this year, and we'll see where it goes beyond that. But clearly, this was the kind of player that we lacked."
