Devin Williams and Kyle Tucker trade takeaways

It’s fair to say that the Winter Meetings weren’t the end of the business week for MLB team executives: There are no three-day weekends for these people!

The dust hasn’t quite settled on these deals yet, but let’s see if we can glean some key takeaways from a wild trading Friday.

Cubs fans could be forgiven if they started to lose patience. Since giving up the last remnants of their 2016 World Series team in 2021, the Cubs have played in exactly zero postseason games. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2017, if you can believe that. They’ve certainly made some moves since then, bringing in the likes of Cody Bellinger, Dansby Swanson, Seiya Suzuki, Shota Imanaga and Jameson Taillon. A revamped agricultural system appears poised to bear fruit. Yet they still seemed like a team of supporting parts with no centerpiece – and seemingly no real plan to get one. (They never played a role with Juan Soto.)

Well, now they have one. Tucker immediately becomes the best player on the team – the best player the Cubs have had since their peak. Kris Bryant? – and exactly the kind of player Cubs fans will love. We kept hearing about a heightened sense of urgency at Wrigley Field, but there wasn’t much evidence of it. With Tucker on the roster but only having control of the club for another year, we certainly have some now. The biggest question now is: Will they use their financial resources to keep it beyond 2025?

There’s no doubt about it: the loss of Juan Soto, to their cross-town rivals, was a brutal blow to the Yankees that we’ll see for years to come. But to their credit, the Yankees aren’t sitting around feeling sorry for themselves. They’ve been incredibly aggressive in the days since losing Soto, agreeing to an eight-year deal with left-hander Max Fried and now moving on to Williams, one of the best closers in baseball.

While Tucker would have been a nice short-term replacement for Soto, that “short-term” part of it might have turned her off; Eventually, they simply traded him for a left-hitting outfielder, only to say goodbye to him a year later. (And remember: They’ll still be among the top contenders for Tucker next offseason.) The Yankees still appear to be missing a hitter or two, and it will be fascinating to see how they deal with it (Alex Bregman ?Cody Bellinger? Arenado? Pete Alonso?), but it’s obvious how quickly they worked after Soto will Go for it: you won’t sit idle for a second.

This isn’t the first World Series hero the Astros have said goodbye to, as George Springer, Carlos Correa and Charlie Morton can tell you. But this is the first time the Astros have made a trade before (potentially) losing him to free agency, and all things considered, Tucker could be the best of all these guys. While it’s likely that the Astros will be outbid for Tucker after next season, it’s still quite another to actively trade him when you’re ostensibly trying to compete (and maintain an eight-season playoff streak).

Are the Astros actively taking a step back or just realigning their roster? The answer may come from what happens later this winter. Houston acquired a third baseman (Isaac Paredes) and a third base prospect (Cam Smith) in the trade, potentially spelling the end for another World Series star, free agent Bregman. Assuming he leaves, do the Astros have any other big moves planned to further this incredible streak?

Even if the Astros get Bregman back – which, again, is far from certain – losing Tucker clearly puts the club back in the top echelon of this division. So who will benefit from this? The Rangers have already made some moves this offseason by re-signing Nathan Eovaldi and bringing in Jake Burger and Kyle Higashioka, and they expect continued progress from their young players. The Mariners always shine Only on the verge of a breakthrough: Maybe this will push her to take more much-needed hits?

And don’t forget how active the other two teams have already been: the A’s signed Luis Severino and the Angels brought in Yusei Kikuchi, Kyle Hendricks, Travis d’Arnaud, Jorge Soler, Kevin Newman and Scott Kingery. All of this activity confirms what the Tucker trade made clear: the AL West smells blood in the water. Finally.

The Cubs have been trying to release Bellinger since he refused to exercise his opt-out clause after the season, and now that they have Tucker, that could happen sooner rather than later. (Especially now that they have so many lefties in the lineup.)

Meanwhile, the Cardinals — who have promised a number of moves this offseason but have yet to make any — may now see the perfect opportunity to find a market for Arenado among the teams that missed out on Tucker. One wonders if they might try to convince Arenado to add the Yankees to the list of teams he would waive his no-trade clause for, because if New York doesn’t get Bregman, Arenado would fit in there nicely. The point is: Friday was hardly the end of the trading season. It was just the beginning.

Do veteran starter Nestor Cortes and junior Caleb Durbin feel like Devin Williams’ return is big enough? That’s not the case, is it? Well, if that makes you think that the Brewers, who just won the NL Central, are somehow out of the picture now, then you don’t know the Brewers. They have other options in their pen, and Cortes actually fits well in a rotation that has become too right-handed.

But more specifically, it’s only been a year since the Brewers lost Corbin Burnes And manager Craig Counsell, and we all assumed that would eliminate them from the NL Central race. And then they went out and won, pretty easily. Discount them very heavily at your own risk.

Watching a television show, you’d think “Underappreciated” and “Underrated” were somehow parts of Tucker’s first name. But he’s about to play a full season at Wrigley Field in his walk year for one of the most popular and famous sports teams in the world while everyone is in tears over his impending free agency. Kyle Tucker will no longer go unnoticed and never again.