Latest NY Mets rumors involving Kyle Tucker create a cautious optimism

You can wine, dine, and fly to their home country and even then a free agent won’t sign with you. Kyle Tucker is from Tampa so it’s pretty convenient if anyone wanted to visit him in his hometown this month. Where better to get away from a Northeast winter? The latest New York Mets rumors involving their pursuit of Tucker don’t specify much about their meeting with Tucker, Jim Duquette first declaring it happened and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Ragazzo confirming and adding that it went well.

This wouldn’t be the first time the Mets met with a star free agent and he ended up elsewhere. In their pursuit of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Steve Cohen went to Japan and later invited Yamamoto over for dinner at his Connecticut home.

Yamamoto graciously accepted the visit, the dinner, and chose the Los Angeles Dodgers anyway. Does Tucker do the same? There isn’t a better place to increase your chances at a championship and pad your stats in a prime season of your career while preparing yourself to re-enter free agency again than with the Dodgers.

The ongoing triple threat match for Kyle Tucker has a lot of obstacles to jump over

It hasn’t been unusual for Cohen to get involved in free agency. After the way the 2025 Mets season ended, he needs to. He must. He should want to stick his face in there. This offseason has been more hands off. It has been a part of the frustration with the organization. Why hasn’t the owner stepped in and made sure the Mets got their guy?

Signing Tucker would be the ultimate show of good faith. There isn’t a better free agent out there for the Mets to add. And with the way the outfield situation has shaped up, it almost seems necessary if they’re going to put together any semblance of a championship-caliber lineup.

The Dodgers are the worst foe you want to deal with in free agency. The Mets are 0-1 this offseason against them. The best payback for them signing Edwin Diaz would be for the Dodgers to lose out on the Tucker sweepstakes. Then comes the other problem. The Toronto Blue Jays can’t be happy about the Dodgers taking Shohei Ohtani a few seasons ago when he seems sure to land with them.

Suddenly, the Blue Jays have become a destination for all top free agents. Getting to the World Series and coming within a game of winning it all will do that. They’ll end up with one more significant addition in an offseason that has already included some major ones while losing very little along the way. Two teams are looking for vengeance against the Dodgers. Only one can strike the deadly blow and actually sign Tucker. With all due respect to the Blue Jays’ bloodlust, the Mets need it more.

A meeting going well with Tucker doesn’t change much about the situation. When has a meeting ever gone poorly?