Kyle Tucker’s insane 2024 season may have already priced him out of Houston

Kyle Tucker is on quite the tear in 2024, and that presents a real dilemma for the Astros when it comes to keeping him around long-term.

Eric Cole

Milwaukee Brewers v Houston Astros / Tim Warner/GettyImages

The Houston Astros have had to weigh a lot of factors when deciding how hard to push when it comes to giving Kyle Tucker an extension. The team has been interested in extending Tucker for quite a while, but finding a number that the team is comfortable with from a risk perspective that also is appealing to a player as talented as Tucker is exceedingly difficult, without preemptively blowing away the competition.

With any long-term deal, there is concern that a guy will get hurt or underperform and turn the deal into an albatross around the neck of the franchise for years. However, waiting too long can result in a player establishing so much value that a long-term deal becomes extremely costly.

In Tucker's case, it looks like the latter could be happening, given how he is tearing it up at the plate in 2024.

Kyle Tucker's offensive explosion in 2024 could hurt Astros' extension chances

The odds were already against the Astros giving Tucker an extension offer that he would take before he started going wild. Houston has been notoriously hesitant to hand out those big money contracts under owner Jim Crane, and while they have loosened the purse strings a little bit with the extension for Jose Altuve and the deal given to Josh Hader, Tucker's next deal is very likely to dwarf either of those deals.

Complicating matters, Tucker has been on a warpath this season. After coming just short of posting a 30/30 season in 2024, Tucker has been even better so far this year, on pace to dwarf those previously impressive home run totals. At the end of the season, we may be looking at a 40/30 season from him or better, and that isn't going to make him any cheaper.

So far, both sides are saying all the right things. Tucker is focused on playing this season out, but has been open that he would like to get an extension with the Astros worked out in the past. Dana Brown has gone on the record saying that he wants to keep Tucker in Houston for the rest of his career, although the timing of an extension may not be right quite yet (though it's getting right-er by the day).

The longer and longer the two sides wait to get a deal done, though, the more expensive Tucker is going to get, and the possibility that a deal gets done at all becomes a lot lower.

More Astros News from Climbing Tal's Hill

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.