Andrew Friedman reveals question Dodgers posed to Kyle Tucker to sell himself to LA

The Los Angeles Dodgers made Kyle Tucker a priority this offseason, going all-out in their recruitment of the superstar right fielder. Heck, they set the internet on fire with the record-breaking contract they wound up handing him.

Still, that kind of investment requires quite a bit of due diligence before being made, and you can be sure the Dodgers took the necessary precautions. In his final free agency interview with Tucker, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman flipped the script, asking the outfielder if he was willing to do whatever it took to meet the standards set by the players already in the organization.

As it turns out, Tucker had no reservations about the workload he would have to accept in joining the reigning back-to-back champs. "He's all in," Friedman told the California Post.

If he can piece together a healthy, all-encompassing season that flashes all of his talents at the peak of their powers, Tucker's mammoth contract may not look so outlandish in a year's time.

Kyle Tucker prepared to do whatever it takes to aid Dodgers' quest for three-peat

The Dodgers' roster is loaded. There's really no other way to put it. Tucker is joining a group that includes MVPs Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Mookie Betts, plus two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell and World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto. It's an obscene collection of talent that no other team could fathom.

But one thing about putting so many superstars on the same roster is that some, naturally, need to take a step back out of the spotlight. Ohtani's worldwide luster hasn't lost any shine since swapping Los Angeles teams — in fact, it's only grown. Thus, players like Betts and Freeman have had to graciously accept a lesser role in popularity, even if their importance to the team hasn't changed.

Luckily, Tucker, despite being a four-time All-Star, is soft-spoken in nature. He goes about his business quietly, which has led to questions about his commitment in the past. But he's still a 2022 World Series champion who has won both a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger. Injuries have slowed him in recent years, but this is someone who works hard on both sides of the ball.

If the Dodgers' general level of excellence pushes Tucker to improve himself even further — which is a difficult undertaking after earning nearly a quarter of a billion dollars — then their lineup goes from terrifying to inevitable. If it feels like a foregone conclusion that the right fielder will start producing at career-best rates in LA, it's only because he's putting the work in to live up to the greatness of his new teammates.