Below is the absolutly ABSURD take from ESPN MLB "expert" Bradford Doolittle. He literally brings up how big of an overpay this is and that doesn't even factor into the taxes that only make it even higher on the Dodgers. Jeez I knew ESPN was getting bad but this take is embarrassing. There have only been 2 other A's given this year and one went to the White Sox for signing Munetaka Murakami and the other went to the Pirates for the three team trade with the Astros and Rays.

Dodgers -- again! -- nab winter's biggest free agent, agree to deal with Tucker
The deal: Four years, $240 million with opt-outs after 2027 and 2028 seasons

Grade: A-

Despite the high grade for this deal, I'll begin with a counterintuitive point, which is this: I've soured a bit on Kyle Tucker over the past year, when I lauded the Cubs for acquiring him from Houston. It's not so much that I don't think that Tucker is an outstanding player or doubt that he can help a team win (or keep winning, in this case). But I felt like some red flags emerged in his profile over the past couple of years -- enough of them that I wasn't sure I was on board with a team doling out a big chunk of its long-term payroll space to secure Tucker into his mid-30s or beyond.

The Dodgers are the perfect landing spot for Tucker, and they are the perfect team to shrug off any possible red flags. The end result is that baseball's hegemonic monster looks even more dynastic than it did when the Dodgers won a second straight World Series, just 2½ months ago. (Let's not forget that the Dodgers also already signed free agency's top closer, Edwin Diaz, back in December.)

The Tucker deal is a monster at the average annual value level, though early reports are that $30 million of it will be deferred. Even with that factored in, it's likely that Tucker's contract will set a new high-water mark for AAV, topping Juan Soto's $51 million for the Mets, per Cot's Contracts. (Shohei Ohtani's AAV, after deferrals, is calculated at $46.1 million by Cots; if you disregard the deferrals, Ohtani remains the AAV king.) This is a stunning maneuver by the Dodgers. Though the total commitment is considerably less than the November prediction of ESPN's Kiley McDaniel of 11 years, $418 million, the AAV is eye-popping: 60 ... million ... dollars.

This is the latest, gut-punching example of the Dodgers putting their financial muscle to work, leveraging a capacity that right now no one else can match. Don't blame the Dodgers -- despise them if you must, but don't blame them. This is the system that baseball has chosen to live by. (For now.) And the Dodgers are squeezing it for all its worth. Face it: If your team could do what the Dodgers have done and continue to do, you would be all aboard the Dynasty Express.

From a pure actuarial perspective, I don't think Tucker will be worth $60 million per season. If we go with $10 million as the cost of a win in free agency these days, the simple math says Tucker would have to average six WAR per season for L.A. to break even on the deal. It's way more complicated than that, but let's go with that framework. Tucker, as good as he has been, has never had a six-WAR season.

That's the first red flag on his dossier, one that did not occur to me last year: the lack of a career-defining year. Tucker simply has never had a monster season. Instead, he has been consistently outstanding, which of course isn't nothing. He topped out at 5.5 fWAR in both 2022 and 2023, and has been between 4.6 and 5.5 in each of the past five seasons. Of course, he landed in that range in 2024 in just 78 games -- if he had not been injured that season, his age-27 campaign would have surely registered in the MVP range. But he was injured, which only becomes more relevant.

Tucker is coming off two straight seasons in which he has spent considerable time on the IL. For all his hype, he'll be joining his third team in three seasons. His platform season for this deal (143 OPS+, 4.6 bWAR) was nothing special, and he was downright below average for most of last season's second half. Injuries surely contributed, but his swing was also messed up. He suddenly started hitting everything on the ground, often to his pull side. His power fell off and his BABIP went from .293 before the All-Star break to .255 after it.

The declines are echoed at Statcast. His maximum exit velocities have plummeted, as have his sprint speeds and defensive range metrics. What remains intact -- in a most Dodgers-like fashion -- are Tucker's indicators in plate discipline, contact rates and getting the barrel on the ball. Now he gets plugged into the Dodgers' machine, one of a crowded cast of stars on a team of champions, and it's easy to envision a career renaissance in the offing.

Tucker will push Teoscar Hernandez to left field or perhaps into a more prominent role in trade talks, as L.A. might want to maintain flexibility with that second corner outfield spot with prospects Josue De Paula and Zyhir Hope eventually making their way to Chavez Ravine. Tucker, established player that he is at almost 29 (his birthday is Saturday), makes the Dodgers younger, so finding a new home for Hernandez to keep that trend going might make sense, even if it requires a bit of contract munching.

Is Tucker a risk? Sure, but let's be real: It's the Dodgers. If it doesn't work out, it will affect their future flexibility not one bit.

Besides, if the red flags I saw didn't keep the team in blue from throwing Tucker so much green, who was I to worry? Not only are the Dodgers even better, but those in pursuit of Tucker's services (the Mets, the Blue Jays, at the very least) are gnashing their teeth anew. And the teams pursuing the Dodgers -- there are 29 of them -- just watched L.A. pull even further away, rolling in a self-replicating money machine toward what looks like an unlimited horizon. -- Doolittle