2024 Houston Astros Starters: RF Kyle Tucker

Good morning, y'all. Well, we finally made it. We're wrapping up this series with our final starter for the 2024 season: RF Kyle Tucker. It's a bittersweet day, as I've had a lot fun doing this and learned some new things about our players but this means that Opening Day (I am aware of the Seoul series) is just around the corner! Thank you for commenting and reading these posts. I do try my best to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Now with all that out of the way, let's dive into King Tuck's numbers.

DISCLAIMER: this isn't meant to be a deep-dive but more a snorkeling-dive, to get the conversation going on how we feel about the position/player and what we expect out of them.

2023 Stats

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Stat	Value	Ranking Among RFs*
Games Played	157	3-tied
Plate Appearances	674	6
AVG	.284	6
HR	29	5-tied
RBI	112	1
R	97	6
OBP	.369	4
SLG	.517	4
OPS	.886	4
OPS+	142	4
wRC+	140	4
K%	13.6	3
BB%	11.9	4
BABIP	.289	21
fWAR	4.9	5
bWAR	5.4	NA

*Rankings based on RFs w/ at least 450 PAs (25 total) in 2023. Rankings may be off by a spot or 2 due to secondary positions but you get the picture.

Baseball Savant Page: Tucker's hitting profile in 2023 is most similar to Freddie Freeman's (0.81)

Interesting Stat: In wins, Tucker's OPS was 1.096; in losses, .609. He is also the Astro Unicorn with his OPS increasing the more times he faces a pitcher.

What To Look Forward To

I'm going to break out my super analysis glasses here and tell you that Tucker is very, very good. That savant page is absolutely sexy and if you don't care for that, I still got you covered. The man was 1 HR away from a 30/30 season and 3 runs away from a 100R/100RBI season.

You like walks? Tuck can draw them with the best! You hate strikeouts? So does Tuck! You want your star player to rise to the occasion? Tucker literally gets better with more pressure. From low-med-high lvrge, Tuck's OPS trends from .841 to .902 to .950. Worried about lefty on lefty ABs? You should know by watching only a few Astros games that Tucker hits lefties better than righties (OPS .934 vs .859). Truly, we are blessed to have Alvarez and Tucker on our team.

What To Be Concerned About

The only complaint fans will have on Tucker is his drastic fall defensively last year, going from a Gold Glove with a OAA of 5 in 2022 to almost a liability in RF with a OAA of -6 in 2023. Now I am definitely not familiar with advanced defensive metrics so I'm going to do my best interpreting the data I found.

Tucker's 2023 jump doesn't seem that much worse than his jump in 2022 (-0.9 ft vs Avg to -0.6) but could a small drop-off in that result in much poorer results? For example, his OAA in 2022 for balls hit anywhere back of him was 4. In 2023, it was -5. It did just feel that more hits were dropping over Tucker's head last year than before. Specifically, his reaction time decreased greatly. Although, his route running got slightly better.

Lots of fans theorize Tucker got upset with the arbitration process and as a result, gave less effort fielding. While I do not fully believe that is the case, it's not unheard of for players to play it safer as their Free Agency window draws closer to avoid injuries. Was that the case for Tuck? Or was it just an off year? Defensive stats can be finicky so this year will be a great indicator of Tuck's defense.

My Prediction/Conclusion

Even with his subpar defense last year, Tucker was so damn good as a hitter it really did make up for it. However, I would like to see his defense go back to at least league average, especially since we all know what Tucker can do at his best. And given arbitration was avoided this time around, that narrative can't be used for this year.

Tuck will get his 30/30 season, along with 100 R and 100 RBI. I'm buying into all his stock this year. I'll go with a slashline of .275/.375/.530.

What do y'all think? Will Tuck's Gold Glove defense make a return? Is 40/40 even remotely a possibility? Thanks again for indulging me across these posts. I hope something was learned along the way. Have a great day and see y'all Opening Day! Go 'Stros!