If the Toronto Blue Jays fail to sign Kyle Tucker this winter, it will not be for a lack of trying. Tucker visited the Blue Jays facility in Florida prior to the Winter Meetings, per FanSided’s Robert Murray, and ever since Toronto’s brightest stars have tried to sway the silent slugger themselves.

Tucker is expected to receive a long-term contract in the $400 million range. That’s a lot of money to spend on one player. Should the Blue Jays add Tucker, it likely means Bo Bichette will not be back.

There are serious decisions at play here. For their part, though, the likes of newly-signed Dylan Cease, and incumbent stars like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Myles Straw have made their feelings about Tucker known.

How and why the Blue Jays are recruiting Kyle Tucker

Tucker is the top free agent on the market. Any argument against signing Tucker went out the window once Kyle Schwarber and Pete Alonso inked deals with the Phillies and Orioles respectively. Cody Bellinger remains a lower-priced option for teams interested in Tucker, but scared off by his price tag.

The Blue Jays are not one of those teams, as bringing in a player of Tucker’s caliber – who had an .841 OPS and 4.6 bWAR in a down year by his standards – could be what stands in the way of Toronto and their first World Series victory since the early-90’s.

The Blue Jays were mere outs away from reaching baseball’s mountaintop. When the annual climb begins again next spring, they’d prefer to have an even better roster than 2025. The addition of Cease was a great start. Signing Tucker would give the Jays a real argument as the best team in all of baseball, even if it means parting ways with Bichette in the process.

Vladdy surely knows this, which is why he commented on a recent Tucker IG post.

Myles Straw, who was a groomsman at Tucker’s wedding, told the free agent he’d be willing to babysit should he sign north of the border.

And then you have Cease, who appeared on the JD Bunkis podcast and openly asked how close the Jays were to signing Tucker. Let’s just say Cease couldn’t hide his excitement, and it’s tough to blame him.

Blue Jays have fierce competition for Kyle Tucker

As much as Toronto has shown interest, Tucker plans on letting this process play out. National league contenders such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets reportedly could have interest at the right price, while AL rivals like the Orioles and Yankees have at least checked in on Tucker.

Out of the teams listed, the Dodgers are by far the scariest proposition. Los Angeles has already given out more than $1 billion in deferred money the past few seasons, and they’ve made it all back.

When the Dodgers win, they sell a lot of merchandise, season tickets and the like – and this doesn’t begin to take the international market into account. The Dodgers may not be America’s team, but they’re certainly Japan’s and Korea’s.

Toronto were the early favorites to sign Tucker. But Ross Atkins and the Jays front office have been here before. Convincing a free agent to sign in a different country is a challenge. It’s why they assumed they had a chance at, say, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki since they were making the journey across the Pacific already.

Tucker is among baseball’s quietest stars. We have no idea what he’s thinking right now, or if he’s enjoying the Blue Jays’ near-constant pursuit. Toronto will not go down without a fight.