Kyle Tucker has agreed to a $240 million, four-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, according to a person familiar with the deal, bolstering the team's chance for a third consecutive World Series championship.
Tucker can opt out of the deal after years two and three, according to the person who spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday night on condition of anonymity because the agreement was pending a physical.
Tucker's $60 million average annual value would be the second-highest in baseball history, without factoring in deferred money, behind Shohei Ohtani’s $70 million in his 10-year deal with the Dodgers that runs through 2033.
Tucker becomes the latest accomplished veteran scooped up by the deep-pocketed Dodgers, who will have seven of the majors’ 29 biggest contracts by average annual value in 2026. Los Angeles’ previous big move of the offseason was signing former New York Mets closer Edwin Díaz, widely considered to be the best reliever on the free agent market, to bolster their subpar bullpen.
The Dodgers will welcome Tucker’s exceptional bat for the heart of their order, but he also fixes one of their few roster deficiencies as an everyday corner outfielder after Michael Conforto and several others largely struggled last season in left field. Tucker seems likely to play right field for Los Angeles, allowing the club to move Teoscar Hernández back to left.
The Mets and the Toronto Blue Jays, who lost to the Dodgers in last year's World Series, were believed to be in the mix for Tucker's services. “Let me know when you see smoke,” Mets owner Steve Cohen posted on X on Thursday, before following with a second post clarifying that he was “waiting for a decision.”
When healthy, Tucker is among the best all-around players in the majors. But he played in just 214 regular-season games over the past two years.
He batted .266 with 22 homers and 73 RBIs with the Chicago Cubs last season. He was acquired in a blockbuster trade with Houston in December 2024 that moved slugging prospect Cam Smith to the Astros.
Tucker was slowed by a pair of injuries in his lone season with the Cubs. He sustained a small fracture in his right hand on an awkward slide against Cincinnati on June 1. He also strained his left calf against Atlanta on Sept. 2.
After getting off to a fast start with his new team, Tucker hit just .231 with five homers in 41 games after the All-Star break. He served as Chicago's designated hitter in the playoffs as the Cubs eliminated San Diego in the first round before losing to Milwaukee in a five-game NL Division Series.
Tucker, who turns 29 on Saturday, rejected a $22,025,000 qualifying offer in November, so his new deal means the Cubs will get a compensatory draft pick — likely in the No. 77-80 range.
Tucker was selected by Houston with the No. 5 pick in the 2015 amateur draft. He played in three World Series with the Astros, winning a ring in 2022.
He hit at least 29 homers and drove in at least 92 runs for three straight seasons from 2021-23. He won a Gold Glove in 2022 and led the AL with 112 RBIs in 2023.
He was limited to 78 games in his final season with Houston because of a fractured right shin, but he hit .289 with 23 homers and 49 RBIs.
The Tampa, Florida, native is a .273 hitter with 147 homers, 490 RBIs and an .865 OPS in 769 career games. He also has 119 steals in 135 attempts.
AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum and AP Sports Writer Greg Beacham contributed to this report.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
FILE - Chicago Cubs' Kyle Tucker runs the bases after hitting a solo home run during the seventh inning of Game 4 of baseball's National League Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, Oct. 9, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said on Friday she’s confident of her country’s eventual transition to democracy after the U.S. military ousted former President Nicolás Maduro.
But she acknowledged the challenge of holding free elections after decades of autocratic rule and declined to set any timetable. When pressed, she also took pains to avoid giving any details on her plans to return home, saying only that she would return “as soon as possible.”
Her struggle to offer clear answers in Friday's news conference reflects how President Donald Trump’s endorsement of a Maduro loyalist to lead Venezuela for now has frozen out the nation’s Nobel Peace Prize -winning crusader for democracy.
With little choice but to put her faith in the U.S. and hope for an eventual transition, Machado has sought to cozy up to Trump, presenting her Nobel medal to him a day earlier at the White House.
As Machado was meeting with Trump, CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Venezuela meeting with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, further confirmation that Maduro's longtime second in command was the woman that Washington preferred to see managing Venezuela at the moment.
Speaking to reporters at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, Machado said she was “profoundly, profoundly confident that we will have an orderly transition” to democracy that would also transform Venezuela's self-proclaimed socialist government long hostile to the U.S. into a strong U.S. ally.
She dismissed the perception that, in choosing to work with Rodríguez, Trump had snubbed her opposition movement, whose candidate was widely believed to have beaten Maduro in the 2024 presidential election.
“This has nothing to do with a tension or decision between Delcy Rodríguez and myself,” she said, but avoided elaborating in favor of more general assertions about her party's popular mandate and the government's dismal human rights record.
“The only thing they have is terror,” she said of Maduro's government.
Machado waved away the suggestion that her movement wouldn't be able to assert authority over security forces that remain loyal to Maduro and have long benefited from corruption under his government.
“There are not religious tensions within the Venezuelan society or racial or regional or political or social tensions,” she said.
But she also acknowledged “the difficulty of destroying a 27-year structure allied with the Russians and the Iranians.”
“We are facing challenging times ahead,” she said.
In apparent deference to Trump, she provided almost no details on Friday about what they discussed or even what she thought the U.S. should do in Venezuela, saying, “I think I don’t need to urge the president on specific things."
Trump has said little about his administration's plans for holding new elections in Venezuela and far more about its vision for reviving the nation's crumbling oil infrastructure. He's relying on a crippling oil blockade and threats of further military action to keep the interim government in line.
In a sign that the U.S. is exploring the restoration of relations with Venezuela, U.S. officials are considering reopening the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, which Trump closed during his first administration.
Machado traveled to Washington looking to rekindle the support for democracy in Venezuela that Trump showed during his first administration. She presented him with the prize she won last year, praising him for what she said was his commitment to Venezuela’s freedom. The Nobel Institute has been clear, however, that the prize cannot be shared or transferred.
Trump, who has actively campaigned to be awarded the prize, said Machado left the medal for him to keep. “And by the way, I think she’s a very fine woman,” he said. "And we’ll be talking again.”
That was of small comfort after Trump said it would be difficult for Machado to lead because she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”
Machado crisscrossed Venezuela ahead of the 2024 presidential elections, rallying millions of voters looking to end 25 years of single party rule. When she was barred from the race, a previously unknown former diplomat, Edmundo Gonzalez, replaced her on the ballot. But election officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary.
Machado, revered by millions in Venezuela, went into hiding but vowed to continue fighting until democracy was restored. She reemerged in December to pick up her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, the first time in more than a decade that she had left Venezuela.
DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Darlene Superville in Washington and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed.
Venezuelan opposition leader MarÌa Corina Machado greets supporters on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House after meeting with President Donald Trump Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado waves to supporters on Pennsylvania Avenue as she leaves the White House after meeting with President Donald Trump Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado speaks at the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank, a day after meeting with President Donald Trump and members of Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado speaks at the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank, a day after meeting with President Donald Trump and members of Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
