The Astros and right fielder Kyle Tucker discussed a long-term contract in the offseason and into spring training, but no deal was reached by the time the season got underway, and general manager Dana Brown noted at the time that negotiations were “paused” for the time being. Brown piqued the fan base’s interest in his weekly appearance on 790 AM’s Sean Salisbury Show that he’s optimistic the two sides will work out a deal and that Tucker will spend his career with the Astros. He later clarified, however, that talks have yet to resume since being put on hold (link via Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle).
The 26-year-old Tucker has delivered in spades both on his lofty draft status (No. 5 overall in 2015) and his top-prospect billing. Already a two-time All-Star and a 2022 Gold Glove winner, he’s in the midst of perhaps the finest season of his exceptional young career. In 113 games and 481 plate appearances, Tucker has slashed .296/.377/.517 with 21 home runs, 28 doubles and 24 stolen bases (in 27 attempts). He’s just one steal shy of last year’s career-high mark, and he’s on pace for his third consecutive 30-homer season. This year’s 11.6% walk rate is easily a career-high mark, while his 12.9% strikeout rate is both a personal low and the ninth-lowest mark among all qualified big league hitters.
Tucker entered the 2023 season with 3.079 years of big league service and will finish at 4.079, leaving him arbitration-eligible for another two seasons. Given his age, draft/prospect pedigree and general excellence to date, there’s little reason to expect any sort of downturn in the near future. Were Tucker to naturally reach free agency by accruing six years of MLB service, he’d do so heading into his age-29 season — and likely in position to command a contract in excess of $200MM.
The Astros haven’t necessarily shied away from large payroll commitments, but they’ve typically preferred to mitigate the length of any high-priced deals. Jose Altuve’s extension promised him five years and $151MM on top of the remaining two years and $12.5MM on his prior contract. Yordan Alvarez’s six-year, $115MM contract is the longest handed out under owner Jim Crane. That deal covered all three of Alvarez’s arbitration seasons and three would-be free agent years. Tucker is already playing his first arb year on a $5MM salary and will be due a substantial raise this offseason.
Any extension for Tucker would presumably need to top Alvarez’s deal by a good margin — not only in terms of overall guarantee but in terms of length. The six-year term Alvarez landed would cover Tucker’s age-27 through age-32 seasons and set him up for free agency in advance of his age-33 season. It stands to reason that a player of his caliber would more likely be seeking a deal of eight-plus years in length, particularly now that he’s only two seasons removed from hitting the open market in prime position for a mega-deal.
For now, Brown stressed that the focus is squarely on attempting to overtake the Rangers for the lead in the American League West and to engineer another deep postseason run. Tucker will play a focal part of those efforts, of course, but the ’Stros were dealt some potentially difficult news regarding another key contributor following last night’s game. Manager Dusty Baker told reporters this morning that first baseman Jose Abreu reported discomfort in his lower back following yesterday’s game (Twitter link via Joe Trezza of MLB.com). He’ll be evaluated further this weekend.
Abreu’s first season in Houston has been a forgettable one overall, but the former Rookie of the Year and MVP looked to be rediscovering his form earlier in the summer. After floundering to a .211/.276/.260 slash through his first two months, Abreu came roaring back with a .288/.330/.484 output over his next 200 plate appearances. While not quite his peak form, that was 22% better than league-average, by measure of wRC+, and Abreu looked well on his way to quieting concerns brought about by his sluggish start to the season.
Unfortunately, his production has cratered once again. Abreu has just three hits in his past 39 trips to the plate and has fanned at an uncharacteristic 28.2% clip in that time. It’s unclear how long his back has been ailing, but the recent downturn after an impressive performance in June and July could well be related to the apparent injury with which he’s dealing. The season-long numbers are still ugly (.234/.291/.343), but losing the June/July version of Abreu is a notable hit to any lineup.
Of course, for as many potent bats as the Houston lineup has featured in recent years, elite starting pitching has been a hallmark of Astros clubs throughout their recent peak. The trade deadline return of Justin Verlander should only help to continue that legacy, but the reacquisition of Verlander won’t necessarily cost someone his spot on the starting staff.
Trezza writes that the Astros are likely to move to a six-man rotation, at least for the time being, keeping rookie right-hander J.P. France in the mix. Calling baseball an “earn-it business,” Baker emphasized that France has indeed earned his spot and will stay on turn moving forward.
It’s hard to argue with that characterization. The 28-year-old France has turned in 95 innings of 2.75 ERA ball since making his big league debut earlier this season, emerging as a godsend in the wake of season-ending injuries to Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia. France has had some modest fortune on balls in play (.277 BABIP) and probably can’t continue stranding 81% of his baserunners — league average is 72% — but he’s looked the part of a solid big league starter even when accounting for some potential regression.
Keeping France in the rotation will have other benefits beyond his own performance. Hunter Brown is nearing last year’s total workload with seven weeks of the season yet to play out. Jose Urquidy just returned from a months-long absence due to a shoulder injury. Cristian Javier has been pitching better of late, but he hit a wall midsummer and had his spot in the rotation skipped heading into the All-Star break. Keeping France on the starting staff alongside Verlander, Brown, Javier, Urquidy and Framber Valdez will help the Astros to manage Brown’s workload and exercise caution, as necessary, with Urquidy and Javier.
Wow Tucker has aged so well for 3,079 years of major league service!! How does he do it???
Hmm..either you didn’t notice those were periods and not comma’s or you decided to crack that joke anyway. I did giggle a bit though.
Maybe the author originally made a typo and has since fixed it? In Europe, they switch periods and commas in numbers.
Since 2014, the Astros will likely have 11 players finish top 5 in AL ROY: Springer 14, Correa 15, Devinski 16, Gurriel 17, Alvarez 19, Javier 20, Garcia 21, Peña 22 and Brown, France, Diaz 23. That list doesn’t include guys like Tucker, Bregman, Valdez and McCormick. The Astros player development is second to none.
100% correct – see my comment just below
No disrespect, but boy oh boy! Those tanking years did help a lot. Now they still did a pretty good job in the later rounds, but to be honest, those are a bit of a crap shoot. Really any player is, but especially after the top 40 ish picks.
Rays did the tanking thing first, just no one noticed because they never won to begin with.
Ah, yes, JP France – chosen in the 14th round of the 2018 draft, 432nd overall. Baseball America had him as Houston’s # 21 prospect coming into 2023. That would place him outside MLB top 400 league wide. Stunning work, everybody!!!!!!
Public prospect rankings are trash, and no good front office considers them in any way, shape, or form, in terms of what they see in a player.
Prospect rankings and WAR are just for fans to play with, and have no correspondence whatsoever with an actual team winning actual games in real life.
There’s also the fact that development (and dropoff) often isn’t linear. New pitches, changes to a hitter’s swing, physical growth, new coaches, injuries – there are lots of reasons for players to over- or underperform their draft position and/or prospect ranking.
If the Astros thought France would perform like he has so far, they certainly would have drafted him much earlier than they did.
I like JP, but his inability to strike guys out has me cautious that he will be anything more than an average 5th starter. He has had good results so far, but I’m not sold on him being a sub 4 era guy yet
I remember you guys made a post which was talking about France as if he was just some shrub who wouldn’t keep it up and was bound for discouraging regression because of his analytics. Now even though he is still bound to some sort of regression he is a godsend. When I commented a while back about him I was pinning him in a very good light while others said oh the analytics he won’t even be a starter by the end of the year. Here’s to proving you wrong, at least for the time being, and here’s to good players now being considered gifts from God when earlier in the season he’s just having really good luck he’ll fall back to earth. Well he hasn’t so far and here’s to hoping he doesn’t. As a braves fan, way to go France!
as an Astros fan, way to go Braves – y’all have been EXCEPTIONAL the last 35 years at scouting, signing, and developing players you can win games with!
The Astros and the braves both went through hell during their rebuilds to get where they are now and both teams have great homegrown talent for years to come. We might both make a trade here, a signing there to get better, but both of these teams are some of the best at developing their own players and it has been rewarding to the point that both teams are getting to the playoffs each year and both have a chance at competing for the world series. I’d love a rematch, it’s already a great rivalry that would spin heads if we kept going to the world series each year to face each other while teams still try to buy their chances of getting there.
Can we all get in a circle and sing Kumbaya now ?
if the circle is MLBTR posters who are fans of smart front offices, it’s gonna be a pretty small circle
I’m a die hard braves fan, but I’m also a baseball fan. I love watching every single team, I love watching all sorts of players succeed and I’m all for an underdog story. I hope the braves win it all, but if they get knocked out of the playoffs you best believe I’m still going to be tuned into the world series and have a blast in doing so. And many might not like this either but it was awesome watching lorenzen and the rival Phillies complete a no hitter yesterday. I love baseball and I love anything amazing like that to happen wether it’s the braves or a rival to do said amazing thing.
$192M/8 gets it done? Too much in Houston’s eyes, too little in Tucker’s eyes? Who knows, but $5 million this season is one hell of a bargain for a top-10 player
It would be done deal already. I strongly suspect Tucker’s representation is holding for more.
Now is the time – actually 3 years ago was the time to extend Tucker.
He is going to want to get a top 5 RF contract.
The top 5 RF contracts= Betts, Harper, Stanton, Springer, and Bryant (I don’t count Tatis as he should be a SS) add up to $1,252M in 51 yrs or $26.5M per yr.
They run on average through age 37 season.
So for Tucker that would work out to be 9 years and $238.5M.
If they sign him now, maybe they can get a discount on arb years and do $215M-$220M
I am going to pray that the GM Brown makes Kyle Tucker a good deal to keep him for many years to come. And Tucker doesn’t leave the Astros. I don’t care what anyone saids about my Astros I stick with them while I am able to. So don’t y’all give me a hard time talking about my Astros.
I know the Astros don’t like long-term contracts, but if you’re gonna give 10 years to somebody, Tucker is a pretty good bet.
Does Kyle Tucker ever smile?? I swear I have never seen this dude smile. Lighten up Kyle, it’s just baseball.
Huge respect for teams where management refuses to cave to lengthy contracts. Too, too often, those players awarded lengthy contracts “forget” how to be competitive. If the player warrants it, reward him with a ton of money for a year or two – keep him hungry. If he insists on multi-years, there are other teams who will cave. So what if you lose an Ohtani, Soto, or other phenom? There are PLENTY of high caliber players to choose from even if they don’t hit 30 homers a year.
I’m not surprised at Abreu’s numbers. You could see last season that his skills were declining. It’s too bad he’s injured now because traditionally, August is his best month.
Yes, Abreu is slowing down, but I suspect that part of his problem is being in a new league and seeing new pitchers for the first time. I believe he’ll be closer to his former self next year.
@Avenger, Abreu hit with less power last season. Aside from that it was one of his best seasons as far as doubles, # of hits, BB’s, batting average, etc. His skills were in no way in decline last season other than hitting for less power.
Tigers: It was just the second time in his career that he didn’t have at least 100 RBI. He also had the lowest number of HRs in his career. He didn’t even lead the team in either category. Andrew Vaughn, who last time I looked hadn’t been traded yet, led the Sox in both categories. He’s not even coming close to last year’s record this season. To me, that’s a player in decline.
As I mentioned his #s aside from power #s were all some of best in his career. As for RBIs, they are flukie and also are contingent on others production not just that of who is at the plate.
The fact still stands aside from power he had some of best #s at the plate of his career. So no his skills were not clearly declining.
Perhaps the back has been a nagging issue for a while longer than we know.
And mind you the Whie Sox as a team scored over 100 less runs last year than in 2021. So yes that will have an enormous impact on the opportunities for a player such as Abreu to drive in runs. It also gave pitchers more opportunity to pitch around him and not forced to throw pitches he could more easily drive hard. Explaining some if the decline in his power. He still hit .304 with 40 doubles. So again in no way was he clearly in decline.