Details on signing bonus, annual salaries, deferred money, competitive balance tax, opt-out clauses, and draft pick loss

Dodgers introduce Kyle Tucker

The Dodgers finalized their deal with Kyle Tucker on Wednesday, signing the outfielder to a four-year contract worth $240 million.

Tucker gets a $64 million signing bonus as part of the contract, $54 million of which will be paid this February 15 and the other $10 million on February 1, 2027, per Beth Harris and Ronald Blum of Associated Press, with the following annual salaries.

2026: $1 million
2027: $55 million
2028: $60 million player option
2029: $60 million player option

A total of $30 million of the salaries are deferred — $10 million each year from 2027-29 — which is not uncommon among Dodgers contracts of late. Each year’s $10 million deferred salary will be paid out at $1 million per year every December 1 from 2036-45, again per AP.

Tucker is one of 10 Dodgers with deferred money in their contract, with a total of $1.0945 billion scheduled to be paid out between 2028-47. Shohei Ohtani’s $680 million deferred — 97 percent of his 10-year contract — is the outlier, with deferred money in the other nine contracts ranging between 12.5 percent (Tucker) and 36.3 percent (Blake Snell) of the total contract guarantee.

The deferrals in Tucker’s contract reduce the average annual value from $60 million to $57,195,945 per year.

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Tucker has two opportunities to opt out of the contract — after either the 2027 or 2028 seasons. The Dodgers typically don’t include opt-outs, but given that Tucker was also being heavily pursued by the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets, including the ability for Tucker to leave potentially after two seasons was a way for the Dodgers to sweeten the deal.

“In two years, we’ll know a lot more about a lot of things than we do know, and just because he opts out doesn’t mean that we won’t be there to try to sign up,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “In any deal you’d prefer to to have an opt-out. Generally speaking, I think they’re very poorly priced in the market, which is why we have avoided them by and large. In this case, it just made sense for a confluence of reasons.”

Because Tucker declined a qualifying offer from the Chicago Cubs in November, the Dodgers will forfeit a pair of picks in the 2026 MLB Draft. Having already ceded their second and fifth-round selections for signing fellow qualifying-offer free agent Edwin Díaz in December, the Dodgers for signing Tucker will forfeit their third and sixth-round picks this July. That will likely leave the Dodgers with a draft pool of something like $4 million or just under, which would be their lowest in the 15 years of the draft slotting system.

“The depth of our system put us in a position where, while the cost is still meaningful, it wasn’t as significant. We have a very strong system up top,” Friedman said. “But even more than that, I think the depth of our system allows us this one year to have our food budget for the draft meetings exceed our signing bonuses. It’s not great by any means, but just trying to balance that with doing everything we could to put ourselves in the best position to win a championship in 2026.”