Cubs meet with Kyle Tucker’s agent, but also appear ready to move on with post-Tucker plans

LAS VEGAS — It’s still early in Major League Baseball’s offseason, but the Chicago Cubs appear ready to move on without Kyle Tucker, the consensus No. 1 player in this year’s free agent class.

At this stage, though, the Cubs aren’t ruling anything out. They haven’t issued a statement wishing Tucker “the best of luck” in his future endeavors. The annual general managers meetings create a lot of posturing and misdirection, as well as productive discussions.

Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer met with Tucker’s agent, Casey Close of Excel Sports Management, at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas on Wednesday, where team officials, league executives and player representatives filtered throughout the hotel and casino.

Besides Tucker, Excel clients include Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson and free agents such as ex-Cub Kyle Schwarber, reliever Brad Keller and starting pitcher Michael King.

“Our conversations are long,” Hoyer said. “We’ve got a lot of (Excel’s) guys. We’ve had a lot of their guys. We think really highly of (Tucker), and we’ll keep talking with Casey. Nothing’s coming together here in Las Vegas. We’ll just keep talking to them about a bunch of their guys.”

Still, all signs keep pointing toward Tucker being a one-and-done player at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs’ conservative business/baseball model has never executed a player contract larger than Jason Heyward’s eight-year, $184 million deal, which was negotiated by Excel and signed a decade ago.

Tucker’s potential big-market options elsewhere — officials from rival clubs identified the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays — suggest a market that will go beyond Chicago’s comfort zone.

With Seiya Suzuki positioned to reclaim his old job in right field — and Moisés Ballesteros and Owen Caissie ready to compete for at-bats as left-handed designated hitters — the Cubs already seem to have their post-Tucker plans in place.

“We’re going to look at everything,” Hoyer said. “But I feel like, from an offensive standpoint, we can kind of play a game tomorrow if we needed to. We have players at every position.

“Will we look to move things around? Will we look to add? Of course. But the level of urgency is not nearly as high as on the pitching side.”

Given those needs, the Cubs are open-minded about that pursuit of pitching, looking at potential trades and a higher tier of free-agent starters than they have targeted in recent years, according to sources briefed on the team’s plans.

While Cubs manager Craig Counsell could write a 2026 Opening Day lineup without any additional moves, the rotation needs upgrades, and the bullpen will be almost entirely rebuilt.

Chicago may not have a one-for-one move to replace Tucker, whose disappointing, injury-plagued second half did not stop him from winning a Silver Slugger award and producing a season worth 4.6 WAR, per Baseball Reference. By OPS+, he was still 43% better than the average major league hitter. For months, he performed at an MVP level, fueling the fast start that propelled the Cubs toward October.

That playoff appearance makes the Cubs believe that they have a solid foundation to level up without Tucker, who they acquired last offseason in a blockbuster trade with the Houston Astros. Like it or not, this organization is consistent in its messaging, spending patterns and fixation with flexibility.

“One of my favorite things to talk about in the office with the guys is: ‘A win is a win is a win,’” Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins said. “An offensive win is the same as a defensive win is the same as a pitching win. But if you look at our current lineup, our current depth chart, where are we most likely to be able to improve?

“It’s going to be on the pitching side. That’s where the most opportunity is. It’s not that we wouldn’t acquire an awesome position player or be active on the position-player market in different ways. But it’s just most likely that it’s going to be in the pitching space where we find things that make us better for the cost that we’re looking to be paying at that time.

“That’s a long way of saying: ‘Yeah, our focus will be everywhere,’ but I would imagine that most of the action would be involved in the pitching market.”

The end-of-season message for Tucker, Hawkins said, was essentially the same one given to Keller, who signed a minor-league deal last winter and enjoyed a breakthrough year as a reliever: “We told him, ‘We’d love to figure out ways to put you in a Cubs uniform again, but we’ll see how it plays out.'”

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