Kyle Tucker will be a nightmare for the Cubs' NL Central Rivals

The waiting game drones on this winter as the Cubs patiently await where Roki Sasaki chooses as his next home and the free-agent dominos wait to fall. However, there is plenty of reason for anxious excitement with their star acquisition this offseason, Kyle Tucker. A full season’s worth of Tucker’s recent adjustments can wreak havoc on division opponents.

Taking a dive into his recent spray charts, Tucker can do a lot of damage to rival pitching staffs right at home at the Friendly Confines. While many of Tucker’s mammoth blasts are pulled deep beyond the wall in right field, he uses all fields quite well and often. At Minute Maid Park in Houston, the left-center field fence deepens sharply next to the pesky Crawford boxes. When extrapolated to Wrigley Field, many of these extra-base hits and “loud outs” the other way turn into would-be home run trots with the shorter fence.

Much of the same is also evident with balls hit to right-center field, where the difference between Wrigley’s rounded wall is drastically shorter than Houston’s power alley. It goes without saying that cool lake breezes and weather plays a major factor over the course of the season so much of this is to be taken with a grain of salt, but because of how often Tucker hits no-doubters to right, it shouldn’t be too concerning that some of these come with a slight chance to turn into outs.

Just how high is the ceiling for Kyle Tucker's first season as a Cub?

The potential production increases don’t just stop at Addison & Clark. Coming into the hitter-friendly parks of the NL Central, Tucker’s history also dictates that his power would translate quite well to more games on the road at these fields. Looking at expected home runs by park, Tucker has a plus-8 in 2022 and a whopping plus-9 in 2023 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. Much of the same can be said with American Family Field in Milwaukee, where he has a plus-6 and a plus-7 in those same respective seasons.

These potential jumps in home run numbers are not dissimilar to when the Cubs traded for Nick Castellanos from Detroit in 2019. Moving from the deep at-the-time 420-foot center field wall at Comerica Park to Wrigley's much shorter ivy-laden fence, the would-be home runs became a reality as Castellanos managed to blast 16 home runs in just 51 games in the blue pinstripes.

These field conditions, when combined with the drastic launch angle and barrel rate adjustments Tucker has made at the plate, are a perfect recipe for success and the potential to set career highs across the board. In just half a season in 2024, Tucker would have ranked in the top 2 on the team in MANY offensive power categories, namely home runs, on-base percentage, slugging, and fWAR to name a few.

Tucker can prove to be the perfect anchor in the lineup that the Cubs so desperately needed, with room to post MVP-caliber numbers. There’s plenty of reason to believe that “Whoomp! (There It Is)” will ring loudly all summer long after Tucker booms round-trippers into the raucous Wrigley Field Bleacher Creatures.