Fantasy baseball is hard. Veteran fantasy managers and analysts are usually quite spunky and confident before the season starts. We spend hours upon hours over several months researching players, keeping up with depth charts, player news, and draft boards, focusing on a variety of different elements from projections, roster construction and game theory. We have good fantasy seasons and bad ones, but no matter how well or poor we do, we are always humbled and reminded that this environment is pure chaos, which we immediately feel every Opening Day. Just ask the person in your league who spent their first-round pick on Paul Skenes.
After all, these are human beings playing the game, not robots. Sure, they are professional athletes who receive incomes many of us will never a sniff a sliver of, and their physical abilities are superhuman, but they are people, nevertheless. They go through constant patterns of performance fluctuation, suffer injuries, tolerate physical pain, rehab, sometimes have setbacks, and continue to encounter further performance fluctuations. Some, or perhaps most, endure personal issues and trauma that impact their on-field output that we never hear about. They are publicly questioned, and constantly judged, scrutinized, and lambasted. Some receive death threats via DM because they were one hit short of someone hitting their parlay. These players are people with feelings and emotions, just like you and I. We often have difficulty figuring out what’s going on in our own head. What makes us think we can do so in someone else’s?
There once was a probably quiet boy named Kyle who really loved to play baseball. He grew up around the turn of the century, playing it probably every day, in his hometown of Tampa, Florida. He continued to excel at the game and was professionally scouted and nationally renowned. In 2015, the year that the boy legally become an adult and was a high school senior, he batted .484, was named Baseball America High School Player of the Year and was drafted fifth overall by the Houston Astros. As you may already know, this Kyle is Tucker and he is a four-time MLB All-Star and a World Series champion. Over the last two seasons, he has dealt with serious injuries. Now the baseball world is watching Kyle struggle in real time, and we all have something to say about it. I mean, he’s taking home $55M this year and he “doesn’t even care!” This season, he is batting .189 with just two home runs in 60 games at Dodger Stadium. He was hitless over a seven-game stretch until Tuesday. During a telecast on Monday, Dodgers broadcaster Eric Karros suggested that Tucker should have a “reset” and be demoted to Triple-A. It all came to a head on social media when he dropped a routine fly ball on Monday night. Dodger fans booed him for it.
Droves of folks on social media have been mocking him and laughing at him — baseball fans, Dodger haters, which seems to be most baseball fans these days, and fantasy managers who drafted him in the first or second, alike — grown adults who suggest he can just wipe his tears away with his money. Not that it really matters, but it obviously doesn’t look like Tucker is crying here. And if he was, would that then nullify the unfounded preseason hubbub about him not caring about baseball because if you’re showing emotion that means you actually care? It makes no difference because social media is an unfiltered and unaccountable cesspool of opinions and arguments that can be framed in any which way. There is no winning there, only time wasted scrolling afternoons away, reading drivel.
None of us know Kyle personally. We don’t know why he is struggling at the plate, but whatever it is, it goes beyond the baseball field. We make it our business because he’s in the public eye and we have forums to do so — because he’s not the same productive hitter he once was; because he makes a wild amount of money, most of it deferred through a loophole; because he’s on a team now known as the new Evil Empire. I’m not defending him simply because he’s a Dodger, but because he’s a human being. I doubt you’ve read about an eyewitness account of him being a bad or nasty person. He catches flak because of his reserved personality, which comes across as apathetic. Coupled that with his disaster season, and he becomes an easy target for criticism. Kyle has gone through lows, but this sure feels like his career rock-bottom. Three years ago, he was Pete Crow-Armstrong without the panache and the sprint speed. I may not be a fan of PCA’s persona, but I can’t not like him personally because I don’t know him. He’s quite obviously a gamer, and Cubs fans should be proud. As a fantasy analyst and high-stakes player, it’s imperative that personal feelings aren’t part of my analytical equations. I don’t have the energy to debate folks on social media who I’ve never met about whether Pete or Shohei Ohtani are more deserving of the NL MVP, five weeks before the regular season ends. If PCA wins the award in November, it’s because of how the BBWAA writers voted and he probably will deserve it. If I was a voter, I’d like to think that I would be fair and impartial, voting based on my interpretation of what MVP meant and the actual results; not using the privilege to tip the scales toward Ohtani’s legacy and him being one step closer to Barry Bonds’ seven MVP awards.
Back to Kyle Tucker, I was confident that he would have a strong first season with the Dodgers, so much so, that I put my money where my mouth was by heavily targeting and drafting him. Looking back, I did not do so objectively. You may say my Dodger blinders were on, but I obviously wasn’t the only one, and there was a lot to like. As a generally optimistic person, I chose to focus on the positive aspects of his new scenario: that he always produced at a first-round fantasy level when healthy, that he was healthy now, and that he would adjust well and thrive in a winning and committed organization, uplifted by a seasoned manager like Dave Roberts and a cast of veterans like Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and others he could drive in to score with a double in his sleep. My positive bias brushed aside the downside of his recent health history and the possibility that he could crumble under the pressure of his massive contract in a new environment. If you recall, there was the offseason narrative that Tucker could just blend in and stay out of the spotlight under the shelter of the team’s countless other stars. On the surface, this logic is palatable, but it’s a good reminder why very few skills are more important in life than critical thinking. I could have spent less than a minute deconstructing that logic by reminding myself of his Pressure+ rating of 245 based on being a detested Dodger, with the heftiest AAV in history, and that staying out of the spotlight and away from criticism in this day and age was downright improbable. Oh, and hadn’t he played several seasons along bigger stars like Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman, and Carlos Correa?
I do strongly believe that the comparisons to Anthony Rendon are unfair and is low-hanging fruit for engagement farmers on social media. Tucker and Rendon both signed massive deals and haven’t produced on the field since signing, but that is where the comparison should end. Anthony has been vocal about the fact that baseball “has never been a top priority” and that there are too many games in a season. I can respect his “faith and family first” stance, but he avalanched our collective uproar over several years by becoming the poster boy of unproductive mega-contracts in sports. His April 2023 altercation with an Oakland A’s fan didn’t help his reputation, nor did a 2014 interview with The Washington Post where he said that he preferred watching The History Channel to baseball because the game is “too long and boring”. He is on the final year of his $245M contract, is on the 60-day (660-day?) injured list following hip surgery, won’t play again this season and will very likely retire soon. Meanwhile, Kyle Tucker may not be the most vivacious or charming player, but those things aren’t part of the job description. He may appear dispassionate to fans, but those who have played with him compliment his low-key temperament. Here’s what Pete Alonso had to say about his old high school teammate’s mellow vibe in a March 2025 article on ESPN:
[Alonso] likens his personality to his game. Steady and consistent, from his prep days into his major league career.
“Honestly, he’s the same guy,” Alonso said after a recent spring training game. “He hasn’t changed a bit. I mean, he keeps the game simple. He’s just got this even-keel emotion about him both on and off the field.”
[Kyle] Tucker is aware of his reputation but says he does speak up when he needs to — even if he prefers to let his game do the talking.
“I feel like people think I’m pretty quiet and reserved, which I guess I am, but people probably think I’m more [reserved] than I actually am,” Tucker said recently. “I’m decently outgoing.”
Kyle Tucker turns 30 in January and his baseball story is far from over. Redraft managers who started drafts with with Kyle Tucker and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at the 1-2 turn probably aren’t competing for league titles. Some of those folks will be gun-shy when ranking Kyle (and Vladdy) next March, even at their new, lower ADPs. Dynasty and keeper league managers feel like they’ve taken a massive “L” and may have already sold him for pennies on the dollar. For those holding on, it would be wise to review comparable deals if any arise. Those would likely be buy-low offers that should be politely declined. The best move for Tucker holders in dynasty or keeper leagues is just that…hold on.
If he is optioned and spends two weeks in Triple-A to get him back on the success track he is used to, then, so be it. This management team knows what they are doing. Kyle still has the rest of this month, all of September, and the playoffs, to figure it out and get back to confidently hitting like Kyle. If he’s Kyle Tucker, Playoff Hero this fall, he still won’t be a redraft second-rounder next season, but at least we’ll know that he found what he was looking for. I root for Kyle to break out of this season-long funk as I have been for Austin Riley during his monthslong rough patch, and for Austin Meadows many years ago, albeit different circumstances, for which I still wish him the best. Kyle and Austin are Major League ballplayers, but before that they were, and still are, people. Regardless of how much money they make, if they’re on our fantasy teams, or if they prefer to not exuberantly bat-flip in for longball celebrations, we should still be rooting for them. Fantasy baseball is hard, but playing 150+ grueling contests over a six-to-seven month stretch against the best of the best and producing at a consistent and high level against your talented and sometimes superhuman peers, is much, much harder.
So go ahead, Kyle. Have a good cry if you need to, take the reset with humility if it’s mandated, utilize their top sports psychologist if you haven’t already, or maybe try a custom “darkness retreat” to help refocus your mind and quell your soul. Try it all. Whatever it takes. I look forward to seeing you back at the top of your game soon, sans the 20+ SBs seasons, whether or not you’re on my fantasy team or the real-life baseball team I grew up watching since 1988.
