How Long Can You Last Without Caring About Kyle Tucker's Spring Struggles?

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Cubs' superstar right fielder will be fine. He'll be fine. It's just spring training, and he'll be just fine.

Right?

Image courtesy of © Allan Henry-Imagn Images

In his first 15 plate appearances in the Cactus League, Kyle Tucker is 0-for-12, with three walks and five strikeouts. It's just a fistful of looks to start the season, and the games don't count, but Tucker hasn't hit anything especially hard, or looked especially good, even for a guy on an 0-fer. Cubs fans surely remember two years ago, when Dansby Swanson went 5-for-41 during Cactus League play (and that thanks only to a miniature hot streak at the very end of camp) and then started the regular season very hot, but Swanson had several loud outs and a whole lot of walks even before things clicked on the eve of the season.

Besides, Swanson had until very nearly the end of March to figure things out. Tucker enjoys no such luxury. The Cubs play a game that counts two weeks from now, and their best player looks extremely unready. So, the question now is simple: How long can you hold out against utterly irrational panic?

That's what it would be, for sure. Tucker is playing in the Cactus League for the first time, after a career of reporting to Astros camp in Florida each February. He's a legitimate and very consistent star. He'll figure this out. Nonetheless, the panic lurks there, because some guys do put too much pressure on themselves in walk years, and because Tucker has usually been quite good during spring training, and because the Cubs will be in so much trouble if he doesn't put up an OPS of .850 in 2024. It lurks, because the strikeouts have included some weak swings that leave you wondering just a little bit whether Tucker will be less decisive and less aggressive, in the wake of a vicious foul ball off his own shin that derailed his 2024 season and that was itself a result of a more aggressive swing he'd adopted just weeks earlier.

It's likely that Tucker is taking this all in stride. In Cubs camp, there have been as many approaches to the unique challenge posed by the mid-March series in Tokyo as there are players. Some guys know they need to be fully ramped-up and ready when the plane leaves for Japan late next week. Others are going about their business at their usual pace, using their usual markers, and not sweating the hiccup that is two regular-season games stuffed into the middle of spring training. Tucker is the latter, not only because he doesn't need to win a job but because he knows the team will need him even more come June, September and (hopefully) October. On his list of goals for the year, "Cactus League Batting Title" doesn't even appear. He's just trying to steadily improve and prepare himself, on a normal schedule. The slump might eventually take a mental toll on him, but that doesn't seem to be the case yet. Anyway, he could snap it anytime.

The biggest competitive leap in baseball is from Triple A to the majors. The biggest mental leap is from zero hits to one. Soon, Tucker will collect a hit, and then maybe another handful, and hopefully, we can all forget this rough start. He's looked genuinely bad so far this spring, though. Because of those looks, and because he's so indispensable to the Cubs and their hopes for 2025, the difficulty lies in waiting and seeing when that happens, without getting disproportionately nervous. Some nerves are warranted. They just need to be held in check. Tucker is a good player, and eventually, good players play well. Unfortunately for the Cubs, since they're likely to have just 162 games to make the most of Tucker and two of those games are a fortnight away, 'eventually' might not come soon enough.

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[CubinNY]

Until a month into the season. He's got a lot going on and never transitioned to a new team before. 

[Soul]

I'd say the same.  Give me through April.