In case you missed it, the 2025 ZiPS projections are out and they kinda LOVE the Chicago Cubs. Sure, the forecast reveals some room for improvement at the top of the rotation and back-end of the bullpen, but the overall look is extremely bullish.
Except … there’s actually one guy, Kyle Tucker, the system doesn’t love – at least not relative to the rest of his career. You know, the guy the Cubs just unloaded some serious value to acquire for just one season. Let’s take a look.
Kyle Tucker Must’ve Pissed Off ZiPS
Just to set the stage, let me remind you that Kyle Tucker, 27, is a career .274/.353/.516 (139 wRC+) hitter. Let me also remind you that over the last four seasons, that slash line improves to .280/.362/.527 (145 wRC+) and that he was on an upward trajectory into superstardom last season before his shin injury: .289/.408/.585 (180 wRC+) with 23 homers in just 78 games.
Got all that for reference? Okay, here’s the 2025 ZiPS projection for Kyle Tucker.
- .263/.355/.473 (129 OPS+)
- 3.7 WAR
- 23 HRs, 17 SBs
- 12.5 BB%, 15.2 K%
Okay, so obviously those overall numbers are still very strong. But that is a significant drop in average and slugging and homers per season even relative to his overall career marks (let alone last season and the trajectory he seemed to be on). And remember, this is a guy who is still just 27 years old (soon to be 28).
That would still be a great season, but those numbers are hardly superstar-level. They’re more like “In the All-Star conversation, but not a lock” level. So what’s the deal?
I don’t quite know!
Perhaps ZiPS was spooked by the partial season and/or the injury? Maybe the falloff for players like Kyle Tucker begins younger than we’d like to think? In isolation, it’s not like this is a BAD projection (especially considering the conservative nature of all projections), but it is a solid step below even his projections for last season: 136 OPS+, 4.1 WAR, 28 HRs, 23 SBs.
So I just don’t know. Because when I look under the hood of the numbers Tucker posted last season, I see nothing but green flags:
- 12.7 barrel% (highest of his career)
- 91.1 MPH EV (2nd highest of his career)
- .282 BABIP (2024) vs .284 BABIP (career)
- 16.5 BB% (highest of his career)
- 15.9 K% (better than career average)
- 28.0 GB% (lowest of career)
- 16.8 Out-of-zone swing rate (best of career)
- 88.9 Zone-contact rate (2nd best of career)
And I could go on. But he was basically better than he ever (both in results and peripherals) was and is still so young.
Does a flukey shin injury – one from which he already came back *AND* dominated after his return – really warrant such a drop off in expected production? I wouldn’t think so. I also think the NL Central isn’t a particularly challenging division … some would argue it’s the weakest or second-weakest (to the AL Central) in MLB.
Perhaps, then, it’s a Wrigley Field thing? We know the park played particularly tough last year due to the weather, but that’s got such high variability that I don’t know if you could confidently bake it into any projection system.
Throwing a funny final wrench into this entire conversation is the top near-age offensive comps that the system offers. Because, for however much the NUMBERS inside ZiPS may not love Kyle Tucker for 2025, the comps are … hilariously impressive:
- Hitter Comp 1: Mookie Betts
- Hiter Comp 2: Gary Sheffield
- Hitter Comp 3: Carl Yastrzemski
Those are, uh … some big-time names. Yastrzemski is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and 18x All-Star, Sheffield came just short of the Hall last season (63.9% of the vote), and Betts is on a nice path to the Hall, as of now. So how does that align with an underwhelming projection? Truly, no clue.
At the end of the day, all I can tell you is this: Kyle Tucker is probably going to be awesome in 2025, but ZiPS doesn’t love him for some reason. Maybe that means he comes up short of the SUPERSTAR level production path he was on last year, but he’ll still likely be the Cubs’ best bat next season.
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