Padres have no conceivable path forward after Kyle Tucker’s Dodgers decision

Kyle Tucker picked the one team in the division that didn’t need him. And that’s exactly why this feels so bleak from a San Diego Padres perspective.

Los Angeles landed Tucker on a four-year, $240 million contract with opt-outs after the second and third seasons. The $60 million average annual value is the second-highest in MLB history, trailing only Shohei Ohtani’s $70 million AAV. While many believed the list of options were  narrowed down to the Mets and Blue Jays, the Dodgers swooped in doing what they do best — pay up. 

Kyle Tucker to the Dodgers quietly turns the Padres’ NL West chase into a nerve-wracking grind

This is what “stacked roster” looks like in the modern NL West: not just having stars, but having so many layers of stars that you can add another superstar bat and barely have to rearrange the furniture. The Dodgers already have Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman sitting at the center of their lineup identity, and Tucker now slides right into that same gravitational pull. 

The Padres, to their credit, weren’t irrelevant last year. They won 90 games in 2025. The problem is the Dodgers won 93, took the division anyway, and turned the postseason into another victory lap. So even when San Diego is objectively good, the margin for error still feels microscopic — and Tucker choosing L.A. is basically another flex that proves the Dodgers can widen the margin whenever they feel like it.

A take that says the “Padres aren’t even close” lands so hard right now. This isn’t just about one player. It’s about the Dodgers operating like a program with unlimited reloading ability. 

It gets worse when you zoom out beyond Los Angeles, because the Padres don’t just have to stare up at the division bully. The 2025 NL West standings were basically a warning label: San Francisco finished 81–81, Arizona finished 80–82, and those are the kinds of teams that can turn your season into a street fight the second you stumble. If the Padres aren’t built to dominate, they’re going to spend too much time just protecting their ground.

The Dodgers can play dynasty chess while the rest of the NL West plays checkers. And if you’re the Padres, the path forward can’t be “let’s hope we catch them on a down year,” because the Dodgers apparently don’t do down years anymore — they do opt-outs, AAV records, deferrals, and trophy defense.

Call it dramatic if you want. But Tucker to the Dodgers reads less like a signing and more like a statement: the standard in the NL West just moved again, and San Diego isn’t chasing first place right now — it’s chasing oxygen.