Kyle Tucker signing proves Dodgers can only be stopped by salary cap or lockout

So much for the Dodgers being old. 

So much for the concerns about how their offensive firepower could diminish further.

The Dodgers have agreed to a four-year, $240-million deal with Kyle Tucker, and everything suddenly feels different.

President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman could have started the upcoming season waiting to see if veterans such as Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez could continue producing at championship levels. Instead, Friedman chose to be proactive, taking out his interest-free Shohei Ohtani credit card and purchasing the best hitter on the free-agent market.

This won’t be the Last Dance for these Dodgers.

This has turned into a never-ending party that only a lockout and salary cap can stop.

The Dodgers very easily could have done nothing this winter. They won their second consecutive World Series in October, earning their players the right to challenge for a third. Their fans wouldn’t have minded this either, as Mookie and Freddie and Teo have become civic heroes who are on first-name bases with Los Angeles.

An unchanged roster would have presented risks, however. The Dodgers were second in the majors in runs scored last season, but their aging and injury-prone lineup made them susceptible to extended slumps. 

The downside of their dependency on old players was particularly obvious in the World Series. Looking gassed after their 18-inning victory in Game 3, they were crushed in each of the next two games.

The lineup was shaping up to be even older this year.

By the start of the next World Series, Freeman will be 37, Max Muncy 36, and Betts and Hernandez 34.

That doesn’t change.

But the addition of Tucker will improve the team’s roster balance, as he will join a group of players in the primes of their careers including Ohtani (31 years old), Will Smith (30) and Tommy Edman (29).

Tucker will celebrate his 29th birthday on Saturday.

The worst-case scenario for the Dodgers is that Tucker will be a vehicle that helps them extract the most out of Freeman’s and Betts’ post-prime years. In that case, he plays for them for a couple of seasons, voids the remainder of his four-year contract and returns to the free-agent market.

The more desirable outcome is for Tucker to become part of the lasting bridge that links Freeman’s and Betts’ generation of Dodgers to the one that comes next.

The reported opt-out provisions after the second and third years of the deal make Tucker a potential flight risk if he rebounds from two injury-riddled seasons and returns to being a 30-homer, 100-RBI player. If or when Tucker is in that position, the Dodgers should already know what they have in him, not just as a player but as a locker-room presence.

Provided the Dodgers view him as a worthy long-term investment, who would be the favorites to sign Tucker then? The guess here would be the Dodgers.

This winter has underscored how much Ohtani has changed their financial reality.

Ohtani proposed the Dodgers defer all but $2 million of his $70-million annual salary, saving them money in the short term and creating opportunities for them to generate additional revenue by investing the money owed to him. 

The structure of Ohtani’s contract has positioned the Dodgers to take calculated gambles no other team can take.

Reliever performance is notoriously unpredictable, but the Dodgers wagered $72 million last winter on Tanner Scott. The left-hander stunk in his first year with them, a development that would have financially hamstrung any other team. But the Dodgers responded by doubling down and staking another $69 million on Edwin Diaz.

Tucker was also no sure thing, as he was slowed by injuries in each of the last two years. The Dodgers didn’t want Tucker on a long-term deal but positioned themselves to strike if he was willing to settle for a shorter contract with a higher average annual value. That’s what happened. The Mets offered Tucker $220 million, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The Dodgers offered him $20 million more.

Teams heavily reliant on free-agent signings are in danger of crumbling inelegantly. When the cores of their rosters age, they are stuck with old and expensive players who are difficult to move, which impedes the rebuilding process.

The Dodgers don’t have to concern themselves with any of that. Ohtani has handed them a stack of blank checks, and they aren’t afraid to use them.