Slumps Happen — To Kyle Tucker, and Everybody Else, Too

The Cubs’ star acquisition looks lost at the plate, but most of the best hitters endure stretches just like this... or worse.

Kyle Tucker of the Chicago Cubs slides into second base in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field on August 16, 2025. (Matt Dirksen/Chicago Cubs/Getty Images)

Kyle Tucker’s first season in Chicago has already gone through more ups and downs than that huge Ferris wheel out on Navy Pier.

The Cubs traded a sizable collection of talent for him back in December, then watched him tear through the first half with an .882 OPS and a fourth straight All-Star nod. But more recently, his production has cratered: Going into Thursday, he was hitting .189 with just four extra-base hits since July, and was benched this week for a “reset” despite the Cubs being in the middle of a playoff race.¹ Tucker’s slump arrives at the worst possible moment — not just for his team, but also as free-agent chatter had him potentially lined up for a $600 million payday next winter.

Reports from later in the week added the extra intrigue that Tucker had suffered hand fracture on June 1, though team and player insist it is fully healed. (And for what it’s worth, Tucker’s June OPS of .982 was actually his highest in any month this year.) But whether it’s lingering pain, altered mechanics from compensating around the injury or something else entirely, Tucker hasn’t been the same player that I was comparing favorably to fellow Cubs acquisition Alfonso Soriano earlier in the year.

And yet, the cold streak may not really mean what it looks like on the surface.

While we think of the greats as consistent hitting machines, baseball history is littered with elite batters who stumbled through weeks or even months of sub-Mendoza Line production. The boos, the benchings and the injury speculation feel dire now, but there’s data to suggest that Tucker’s rut may also simply be part of the ordinary ebb and flow of a great player’s season.