Contract talks remain stale, but that won’t stop Kyle Tucker from trying to be Superman for the Cubs

CHICAGO (WGN) — Every baseball story that stands the test of time has its heroes. Fans of the Chicago Cubs have theirs, but whether Kyle Tucker becomes another one beyond the 2025 season remains to be seen.

Tucker made a surprise appearance outside Wrigley Field Tuesday afternoon, where the All-Star outfielder connected with fans, talked about what the Cubs need to do down the stretch, and helped roll out a superhero-themed baseball cap.

Oh, he also answered a question about the current state of contract negotiations between him and the Cubs’ front office.

The scene was set at the corner of Waveland and Sheffield inside Murphy’s Bleachers. Tucker stopped by ahead of Tuesday night’s game against the Cincinnati Reds as part of New Era unveiling of their Diamond Hero Edition cap.

Young kids, as sheepish as they were speechless, walked up to a blue and red-emblazoned table with their parents, where Tucker met them with smiles, handshakes, pictures and signatures.

It was the typical type of stuff that transforms ballplayers from a group of guys playing a game on a field of green, to a man on a poster in a young fan’s bedroom, whom they aspire to be like someday.

A hero, if you will.

Tucker said New Era aimed to combine that phenomenon with what he and his Cubs’ teammates do out on the field, in comic book form on the front of a hat.

“It was kind of a little bit like a comic book-style diamond hero,” Tucker said. “[It was an] interaction between what we do out on the field and the hero aspect of that. They put it all together in a hat and it turned out really cool.”

It makes sense. Tucker, who said his favorite superhero growing up was Superman, is no stranger to heroics, accolades, or making it to baseball’s mountaintop.

Before arriving in Chicago, he was named to three American League All-Star teams, won a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger, became a World Series champion in 2022, and finished top five in the 2023 AL MVP race.

After Tucker solidified himself in the center of the Astros’ lineup in 2022, fans ordained him “King Tuck” and wore gold crowns to games in his honor. By year’s end, Tucker made the final catch in Game 6 of the 2022 World Series that sealed a championship for the Houston Astros.

Details like those became the reasons why Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer traded for him ahead of the 2025 baseball season. And so far this year, King Tuck is still King Tuck.

Tucker rode a torrid start to his Cubs tenure into a starting spot in the outfield for the National League at this year’s MLB All-Star Game alongside star teammate Pete Crow-Armstrong.

Through 110 games, he’s hit .274/.388/.479 with 18 home runs, 61 RBI, 75 runs scored and 23 stolen bases. He has the fourth-highest WAR among MLB outfielders, trailing only Aaron Judge, Armstrong and Fernando Tatis Jr.

Numbers like those have made contract extension talks a hot topic, both among Cubs’ faithful and the rest of the baseball world.

Tucker’s contract expires at the end of the 2025 season, and with where the game’s other chess pieces lay, he will likely be the most highly sought-after free agent of this offseason.

In April, MLB insider Hector Gomez reported the Cubs and Tucker were in discussions on putting together a contract extension in the range of 10-11 years and worth $450-500 million.

But in the months between then and now, talks have cooled off.

“Not really,” Tucker told The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney on July 13 about whether his thinking on free agency has changed since being traded to the Cubs.

Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer has expressed a strong desire to keep Tucker long-term, calling him a player to “build a lineup around.”

However, Hoyer has also acknowledged financial constraints given to him by team ownership.

Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts said, “What happens is we just try to break even every year, and that’s about it,” during an interview with 670 The Score at Cubs Con in January.

In March, a Twitter/X account revealed that despite making the third-most revenue among MLB teams in 2024 (trailing only the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers), the Cubs’ 2025 payroll would have only consumed 36.4% of their 2024 revenue.

That number put them in the same money spending tier as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago White Sox, and has left fans feeling pessimistic about the Cubs’ chances of retaining Tucker long-term.

But for now, a contract extension is a far-off concept in the mind of Tucker. According to him, “that stuff will probably just get hashed out as time goes,” and he remains focused on “winning games” and “grinding it out the remainder of the second half.”

“My biggest focus is trying to win the game tonight,” Tucker said Tuesday. “But it’s been great here. [I’ve been loving my time here, and obviously, [I] got to spend some time with fans one-on-one today at this event. So, it’s been a lot of fun here.”

Does that mean Tucker will be in Cubby blue next year and for the foreseeable future? Only time will tell.

Decades from now, Cubs fans will still remember Ben Zobrist’s 10th-inning, go-ahead double in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, or Kris Bryant firing the final out to Anthony Rizzo to break the club’s 108-year championship drought.

Whether Tucker gets the chance to become a hero to fans like Zobrist, Bryant and Rizzo did in 2016 is up to Hoyer and Ricketts. The way it’s looking, 2025 may be his only chance.