How 2 Former Astros All-Stars Are Performing Away From Houston

When the Houston Astros let Kyle Tucker walk in a trade and didn't fight to keep Alex Bregman in the 2024 offseason, the loudest voices in the sport called it cheap: Fans and the media.

Owner Jim Crane was painted as a billionaire unwilling to pay for the talent he had helped grow over the last decade. On paper, and the implication was clear: the Astros dynasty was over because the front office didn't pay up when it mattered most.

Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman, Astros — Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman (2) celebrates with designated hitter Kyle Tucker (30) after hitting a home run during the fourth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Minute Maid Park. | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

In the following year when Bregman was on the Boston Red Sox, aside from an IL stint he spent for a little over a month, he was mostly back to his usual self, batting .273 with 18 homers, 62 RBI with an .821 OPS.

Tucker's contract year with the Chicago Cubs produced similar results to his former teammate, hitting .266 with an .841 OPS. His 22 home runs across 136 games was a bit of a decrease in the power department, but this initially wasn't expected based on how Tucker started.

In the first three months of the 2025 season, Tucker was playing like an MVP in the Windy City, hitting .291, 17 homers 52 RBI and a .931 OPS. He earned his fifth consecutive All-Star nod.

All signs pointed toward an MVP race, but after July, he completely fell apart, hitting .218 in July, .244 in August, and .158 in a shortened September, due to injuring his hand on a IL stint. Nevertheless, he was still going to get paid by somebody in the offseason, and that ended up being the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In 2026, both Tucker and Bregman signed large contracts on their new teams but are underperforming badly. Tucker is slashing .236 with five home runs in Los Angeles, still searching for his consistent swing on a four-year, $240 million contract that made him the second-highest-paid player in baseball by average annual value.

Bregman is batting .243 with a .669 OPS in Chicago, the worst OPS of his major league career. Additionally, he leads all of baseball in runners left stranded and publicly calling himself "god-awful" with runners in scoring position.

Together, the two former Astros cornerstones are cashing checks that total nearly $415 million. Based on their first year, neither has come close to earning his money so far.

Did Houston Dodge A Bullet?

For better or worse, Houston hasn't had to pay a cent of it. They've been fighting their own kind of battle in 2026. Given their sub-par pitching and injuries galore, being 31-37 in the third month of the regular season isn't half bad. But a $60 million right fielder who can't compete with his new teammates in Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, or players less talented than him in Andy Pages and Max Muncy and a $35 million third baseman who is the worst clutch hitter in the National League are not among them.

kyle tucker — Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Kyle Tucker hits a two run home run in the second inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Let's start with the hard data. Tucker signed a four-year, $240 million deal with the Dodgers in January 2026. ESPN noted this would cost Los Angeles roughly $119.9 million annually against the luxury tax given the team's already-elevated payroll position. At $60 million AAV, only teammate Shohei Ohtani earns more per year in baseball.

Through the first two-plus months of the season, Tucker's 2026 line sits at .236/.332/.716, with just five home runs, 30 RBI, and 39 runs scored. Those are not elite numbers by any measure earning $60 million a year. For a player signed to be one of the most dynamic right fielders in the sport, they have been a genuine disappointment.

The underlying metrics paint a picture of a player forcing things. His swing rate has climbed to 49.4%, up significantly from 45.2% in 2025, and he's offering at first pitches 46.4% of the time compared to 36.3% a year ago.

His ground ball rate has risen into the low-to-mid 40s. Additionally, he endured a 24-game stretch without a home run before finally ending the drought with a two-run blast against the Arizona Diamondbacks on June 3rd.

Even with a sliver of a sign of life came with a dose of brutal honesty: "I haven't really felt that swing at all this year," Tucker told reporters afterward.

Per Baseball Savant's 2026 Statcast data, Tucker's barrel rate is just 5.6%, his hard-hit rate 38.9%, and his expected wOBA .327 — numbers that suggest some regression to the mean is possible, but which also reflect a player who has not been hitting the ball with authority consistently enough to carry a $60M-per-year price tag.

Bregman's Season Is Worse

Chicago Cubs designated hitter Alex Bregman (3) singles against the Athletics during the third inning at Wrigley Field. | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Bregman's situation is worse, and more alarming, given the context. The Cubs signed him to a five-year, $175 million deal in January 2026, luring him away from Boston's offer partly by including the full no-trade clause that Bregman's agent Scott Boras had been demanding throughout the process.

Chicago, coming off a 92-70 season in 2025 and positioning themselves as NL Central contenders, believed Bregman would anchor their infield and provide the disciplined, high-contact right-handed bat they needed to push them into World Series contention.

His track record during his time with the Astros and lone year with Boston is there to back it up, with every season aside from 2016 making the playoffs and four of his nine full seasons drawing more walks than strikeouts.

His track record hasn't lived up to the hype. An OPS of .669 is the worst OPS of any season in his career, falling beneath even his last year with Houston, which was widely considered his weakest year as an Astro, ending at .768.

Put simply: Bregman is playing worse right now than he has at any point in his 11-year major league career, and the Cubs are paying him $35 million a season to do it.

His strikeout rate has risen to 17.2%, the highest of his career over a full-season sample. His swinging strike rate and called strike rate are also both at career highs. Bregman has always been a contact-first hitter, but this season's numbers represent a stark contrast to the plate discipline that made him one of the most dangerous right-handed bats in baseball during his peak years in Houston.

After going 0-for-5 in a Cubs loss on June 8, Bregman walked to the mic and delivered a statement that was equal parts accountability and indictment. "I've been terrible. I need to play better," he said, per ESPN's Jesse Rogers. "Offensively, it's been awful. I've failed many times in this game. Runners in scoring position, I've been god-awful. I need to be better. If I'm better over the last how many games, we probably win the majority of them."

That last sentence carries real weight. The Cubs are 34-32 through early June, a record that is fine on the surface, but deeply disappointing given their offseason investment and expectations. On top of that they hosted the Astros at Wrigley two weeks ago and got completely outclassed, as Houston swept them with ease. Bregman faced his former team and went 3-for-11 with no RBIs.

Chicago sits fourth in the NL Central, 7.5 games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, and outside the Wild Card picture as of early June. Bregman himself acknowledged that his underperformance has likely cost his team wins in one-run situations and close games.

Their New Teams: Not Exactly Thriving Either

Part of the "Astros dodged a bullet" narrative rests not just on the individual performance of Tucker and Bregman, but on how their new teams are doing as a whole.

The back-to-back World Series champion Dodgers, at 43-24, continue to steamroll through the league, but that success has come in spite of Tucker's underwhelming start rather than because of him.

Los Angeles entered the season as heavy favorites to three-peat, and their roster is so stacked with Ohtani, Freeman, Pages, Muncy, Teoscar Hernandez, Will Smith, Yoshinobu Yamamota, and Tyler Glasnow that Tucker's slow start has been absorbed without significant damage to the win column.

Simply put, the Dodgers are winning because they are the Dodgers, not because they have Tucker.

What the Astros Got Instead

When the Astros traded Tucker to the Cubs before the 2025 season, they received infielder Isaac Paredes, pitcher Hayden Wesneski, and prospect Cam Smith. Paredes, installed at third base in place of the departed Bregman, has been a steady presence for a team that desperately needed one, including an All-Star nod last year. Smith, while settling in at right field nicely, still needs to improve at the plate.

Wesneski, a Houston native, had potential, but Tommy John surgery has kept him from living up to the deal. Still, when Tucker signed with the Dodgers as a free agent after his one year in Chicago, the Astros were no longer on the hook for a single dollar of his new deal.

The financial freedom those departures created has been meaningful in a year when the Astros have needed roster flexibility to manage an unprecedented injury wave. The team has had as many as 16 players on the injured list simultaneously in 2026, including Hunter Brown, Jeremy Peña, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Josh Hader, and others.

A Fair Caveat: It's Still June

None of this is a final verdict. Just simply how their former stars are doing since they graced Astros fans with sustained playoff success and two rings. Given that, Tucker and Bregman are historically slow starters who have produced second-half surges throughout their careers.

Tucker in particular has a well-documented pattern of cold Aprils and torrid summers. Cubs president Jed Hoyer, when asked about Bregman's struggles, noted that Bregman's 2024 first half with Houston looked worse than his current line does now, and he finished that year with 26 home runs and a 117 wRC+.

There are 90-plus games remaining in both men's seasons. The Dodgers, buoyed by the best roster in baseball, can afford to wait on Tucker. The Cubs, already treading water, need Bregman to figure it out faster.

If nothing improves individually, then it's safe to say the Astros decision, albeit a difficult one at the time, was inevitably the right call.

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