Here are two things we know to be true about Kyle Tucker:
- Through Aug. 31, he had a .357 slugging percentage, and
- From Sept. 1 through the NL Championship Series, Tucker tallied 59 total bases, second on the team only to Mookie Betts (66). He was arguably the Dodgers' best hitter in the postseason.
So which is the real Kyle Tucker? It's a question that matters a great deal to the Dodgers.
Even before they were swept by the Brewers in the NLCS, it was pretty clear that the Dodgers were coming to a crossroads. Their dip in dominance in 2026 -- particularly as it related to Shohei Ohtani's injury issues -- seemed to signal the beginning of the "we're not as young as we used to be" era that comes around for most sports dynasties. If that's where they are now, and the days of assuming simultaneous full-length, full-strength seasons from Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Betts, Will Smith and company are over, Tucker becomes all the more important.
His 2027 is also crucial from a contractual standpoint, for both Tucker and the Dodgers. That's because Tucker holds player options for '28 and '29, worth more than $50 million apiece. He would need a significant rebound next season to potentially consider opting to return to free agency a year from now.
So what went wrong for Tucker this past season, and where could he go from here?
To start with, there was a good reason why Tucker's struggles were so perplexing. In one of our more detailed attempts to figure out what was going on, back in late July, MLB.com's Mike Petriello used the phrase "it’s been everything without being anything." A death-by-a-thousand-cuts down year, if you will.
Although it couldn't really be attributed to any one cause, the evident issue at the time was a decline in barrel rate. (In essence, how often Tucker was making the most valuable type of contact, the type that frequently leads to extra-base hits.) And that did improve in September -- through Aug. 31, Tucker had a 5.5% barrel rate in 2026 compared with 9.2% after. The source of that was a nine-point bump in fly-ball rate (32.6% to 41.8%); his exit velocity actually fell.
What's interesting is that an increase in barrel rate reflects an improvement in contact quality. So, too, would an increase in batting average on balls in play (BABIP) -- but that didn't budge. Through Aug. 31, Tucker hit .263 on the balls he put in play. In September and October, there was virtually no difference -- .264. For reference, Tucker is a career .266 hitter, and his actual batting average rose by 51 points (.228 to .279) between the two periods.
While the quality of contact Tucker made in 2026 may not have compared favorably to previous seasons -- not enough raw power, too many grounders -- the contact itself wasn't the only problem. The next logical step, then, would be to ask about the swings Tucker was taking. So maybe it isn't a coincidence that his strikeout rate (18.0% to 11.5%) and his whiff rate (22.0% to 14.2%) absolutely plummeted after Sept. 1. Even though those pre-September numbers weren't problematic, that dramatic change clearly reflects some kind of adjustment.
All of this would lead to a pretty straightforward, best-case scenario explanation: For the first five months of 2026, Tucker's swing decisions were consistently more flawed than they were in the last two.
The "why" of it all is what really matters here, and that's not something we can speak to with real certainty. That said, consider how long it had been since Tucker wasn't compensating for some injury or another. After breaking his shin in 2024, he played through a number of issues with the Cubs in 2025, most notably a broken hand that derailed his entire season.
Broadly, there are two possible answers to the question we've posed: Either Tucker's September/October surge was a fluke, or that was just how long it took for him to get right again. In all likelihood, it's the latter.
If so, the Dodgers would have yet another true impact bat in their lineup in 2027.