Early Dodgers-Kyle Tucker rumors might force Yankees into uncomfortable position

The New York Yankees have let the Los Angeles Dodgers beat them to the punch far too often in recent years. The discrepancy between the Dodgers landing the big fish and the Yankees playing it safe can't be better illustrated by the two clubs' October fortunes. The Dodgers are closing in on their second straight World Series title and their third since 2020; meanwhile, kids born the last time the Yankees won it all are preparing for their driver's tests now.

The Dodgers are rumored to be threatening again — while preparing for the Toronto Blue Jays in the Fall Classic — as they already have their sights set on Kyle Tucker. Meanwhile, over in Yankeeland, debate is raging over whether Tucker or the (relatively) more affordable Cody Bellinger is the right move to make moving forward.

There's a third option, though, and if the Yankees really want to go back to the promised land in 2026 and reclaim the mantle of baseball's most hated team, they need to go nuclear and push all their chips in the middle of the table.

Yankees Rumors: Dodgers' interest in Kyle Tucker can push NYY to the brink

The Yankees have a group of top prospects banging down the major league door, setting the scene for the most Brian Cashman-esque offseason ever. He'll reunite with Bellinger, giving him a deal that's at least two years too long in order to lower the AAV and therefore the luxury tax hit, add some odds and ends to the bullpen, leave one glaring hole on the roster, and roll with the kids to fill out the rest.

You can just see it now, right? If that were to come to fruition, the Yankees would inevitably stall out and go home empty.

But what they really should do is out-Dodger the Dodgers. Throw caution to the wind and sign both Tucker and Bellinger. After all, Bellinger can man center, Tucker can shift to left, and what was a strength in 2025 in the outfield becomes a dominant force in 2026.

If you look at the Yankees' issues on offense, this plan solves them perfectly. The 2025 roster, aside from Aaron Judge and Bellinger, struggled to hit above .240, while the collective strikeout rate of 23.5% was far too high — sixth-highest in the majors, in fact.

Retaining Bellinger brings back that contact-heavy, low-strikeout presence, and adding Tucker supercharges it. The Cubs star brings with him a .273 career batting average while striking out just 14.7% of the time, while posting a 14.6% walk rate in 2025.

Additionally, Tucker adds athleticism, bringing another 25-30 stolen base threat alongside the dynamic Jazz Chisholm Jr.

What about those youngsters, you say? Package them to swing a big trade or two and fill holes. Carlos Rodón will be sidelined to start the season; who knows what is a reasonable expectation for Gerrit Cole; and Clarke Schmidt is an enigma wrapped in a riddle, given the timing of his Tommy John surgery. So go out and get one of Joe Ryan, Freddy Peralta, or Hunter Greene, all of whom are aces with affordable salaries who can ease the uncertainty in the rotation much more than Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz or Carlos Lagrange can reasonably be expected to.

With whatever capital is left over, the Yankees can target whichever premium reliever inevitably hits the block this offseason to shore up a bullpen that was entirely too problematic in 2025.

The Yankees likely won't take most of these swings. It would mean blowing past the final luxury tax line and actually reinvesting their massive revenues into the on-field product. But if they did, they'd likely be watching confetti fall from the skies through the Canyon of Heroes in November of 2026, and possibly several years after that, too.