Cubs make necessary trade for Kyle Tucker, should they extend him?

The Cubs addressed a significant need on Friday, completing a four-player deal for Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker. In return, the Cubs send Isaac Paredes, Hayden Wesneski and prospect Cam Smith to Houston.

the trade, according to several reportswill bring Chicago a much needed left handed power bat. The Cubs ranked 21st in baseball with 170 home runs and 17th in slugging percentage (.393) in 2024. In 78 games last season, Tucker hit 23 home runs; as a team, the Cubs had only one player — Ian Happ — who hit at least that many over an entire season. Tucker also posted a 4.7 WAR, higher than any Cubs player.

There should be no question whether this is a smart move for the Cubs for 2025. They lose third baseman Paredes in the deal, but they should have internal options to replace him. For a team that has had consecutive 83-win seasons, they had to make a bold move, and this is arguably the right one. The Tucker trade likely precedes another move to make room among the outfield corps (Cody Bellinger has been expected to be traded since the offseason began, and he rumored to be a Yankees target), which would all but cement him as the Cubs’ right fielder next season.

Looking at where Tucker will put the Cubs in 2025, there’s a lot to like about this trade. But above the news of the deal, the reality is that Tucker is set to become an unrestricted free agent in 2026, and he has said he intends to test free agency. He’ll still be under 30 at the time, and if he continues on the trajectory that has earned him three straight All-Star nods, Tucker will rightfully get a lot of attention on the free agent market.

In short, the Cubs have potentially traded players (Paredes and Smith) who could help them beyond 2025 for one who will almost certainly make them better next year, but maybe not until next year. It looks like the Yankees and Juan Soto, and there are reasons to be okay with that from either perspective.

On one hand, the Cubs need to take a step forward. Team president Jed Hoyer has just one year left on his contract, and another offseason isn’t going to cut it. A playoff spot doesn’t necessarily guarantee him an extension, but it helps his case regardless of which direction Hoyer goes. Either he has a better chance to stay in Chicago, or he’s a more appealing target for another organization. From a fan perspective, the frustration is heavy with a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2020 and hasn’t won a playoff game since 2017. Seeing a team realistically in the playoff conversation in 2025 might be worth losing Tucker after just one year. It’s a “win now” move that fans have been asking for.

But from the other perspective, it might not be a move that is good for the team in the long run. Paredes is only 25, and his absence opens up a hole at third base. The Cubs have in-house options like their number one ranked prospect Matt Shaw, but he has no major league experience yet. Expecting him to come up and produce at a level commensurate with what Paredes would have potentially given the Cubs in ’25 may not be realistic. And Cam Smith, the prospect included in the trade, was their first-round draft pick this year and is already ranked seventh in the Cubs’ system. He hit .313 across three pro levels after being drafted and reached Double-A Tennessee. One of these players, or both, could realistically have helped the Cubs toward long-term success.

The problem with that argument, though, is that at some point an organization has to make a move like the one the Cubs did on Friday. In sports, constantly building for the future means never reaching it. If all the Cubs did was stop stockpiling prospects and maintain a payroll that stays under the luxury tax, they’d be perpetually struggling to keep up with clubs like the Mets and Dodgers that have pushed payroll concerns aside. Trading Kyle Tucker doesn’t exactly push all their chips in and by itself won’t put the Cubs on the same level as New York and Los Angeles, but it’s a step in that direction.

However, this does not have to be an either-or proposition. The Cubs could get Tucker to help them win in 2025 and extend him to keep their bullpen window open for longer than just one year. He’ll be expensive to lock up to an extension — it won’t be cheap to convince him to turn down the chance to test free agency in a market that just gave Soto $765 million — but the Cubs have the resources. They are projected to have a payroll of $194 million in 2025, according to Roster Resourceand their cap space will jump from about $70 million next year to $75 million in 2026. If the Cubs trade Bellinger, it will free up even more cap space financially.

There’s plenty of reason to like the Cubs’ Kyle Tucker trade, even if it could hurt a bit after 2025, because they’re a team that needs to take a step forward, and he’ll help them do that. And there is also plenty of reason to believe they can get the best of both worlds and extend the 27-year-old on a long-term contract.