MLB Roundtable: Is It Too Late For Kyle Tucker And Paul Skenes To Turn Things Around?

A slumping star player is the last thing a team wants with the MLB postseason just around the corner.

And yet, everyone from the World Series favorites to the Wild Card hopefuls is dealing with it in some capacity.

The question now is whether it's too late for those players to turn things around or if there's still time for them to build enough momentum for a postseason peak.

FOX Sports MLB writers Rowan Kanver and Deesha Thosar dive into that and more in this week's MLB Roundtable: What is the most important thing or player for L.A. to fix over the next few weeks, as rosters expand and the postseason looms? Kavner: Kyle Tucker.

Edwin Díaz is a close second, but even if Díaz never threw another pitch this year, the Dodgers demonstrated last season when Tanner Scott struggled in the first year of his four-year, $72 million deal (and then didn’t appear in the postseason) that they can withstand the loss of a high-leverage reliever and make up for it in other ways.

Some of their starting pitchers will likely again find their way in the bullpen once October arrives.

There aren’t as many ways to mask Tucker's struggles, which show up on both offense and defense .

He has the lowest OPS at home of any qualified MLB player, and he has dropped catchable fly balls in each of the Dodgers’ last two series.

His frustrations at home got to the point last Saturday that Dave Roberts gave him a mental day off.

Last year, when Michael Conforto struggled in L.A. on his one-year, $17 million deal, the Dodgers gave Conforto all year to try to get right before ultimately holding him off the postseason roster.

That’s a lot harder to do with a player making $60 million a year, so they need to try to find a way to get Tucker’s confidence back to a place where he can at least be an additive supporting piece.

He doesn’t have to be an All-Star caliber player, like he was the last four years.

He just can’t be this.

Thosar: As much as I want to say fixing Kyle Tucker’s season-long slump is the biggest priority, I actually think Mookie Betts getting hot at the plate is exactly what the Dodgers need down the stretch run.