Troy Tulowitzki Release Frees Up Roster Spot
From 2009 through 2014, Troy Tulowitzki’s 27.7 WAR ranked 12th among position players. The players ranked around Tulowitzki at that time present a decent snapshot of his standing today. At 10 is Dustin Pedroia, who didn’t play in 2018. Behind Pedroia is Matt Holliday, who was semi-retired for much of last season. Behind Tulo is Chase Utley, who just retired, and behind him is Albert Pujols, who has been a replacement level player since 2015. Given that company, it perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that Troy Tulowitzki was granted his release by the Toronto Blue Jays today.
What is somewhat surprising is that Tulowitzki was released with the Blue Jays owing the former star shortstop $38 million over the next two years, including a buyout on an option for 2021. Tulowitzki didn’t play at all last season, and as Jay Jaffe noted in August, the track record of shortstops who miss entire seasons in their 30s is not good. He also noted just how good Tulowitzki was in his 20s.
The bad news is that the likelihood of ever seeing 2009-14 Tulowitzki again appears remote, which is a shame, because that guy looked as though he had a shot at Cooperstown. Through his age-29 season, he had accumulated 37.8 bWAR, 16th all-time and ahead of 12 of the 21 enshrined shortstops. He may well wind up this generation’s Nomar Garciaparra. The Boston icon had complied 41.2 bWAR through age 29 (the 2003 season), close to the seven-year peak standard for Hall of Fame shortstops (42.9); in fact, Garciaparra’s actual peak score of 43.0 edges past it. But because his career ended after his age-35 season, he finished with 1,771 hits, 220 homers and 44.2 WAR, numbers too low for Hall consideration. Tulowitzki (1,389 hits and 224 homers) isn’t even to Nomah’s level yet.
Jaffe held out some hope for a rebound, but that rebound won’t happen with the Blue Jays. Tulowitzki came to Toronto in 2015 in exchange for Jose Reyes and a few pitching prospects as the Blue Jays roared to the playoffs. After a solid 2016 season, Tulowitzki only played for half of 2017 and didn’t play well when he did. His heel trouble caused him to miss all of 2018. He is reportedly in better health now and will try to latch on with some team for the major league minimum next year; Susan Slusser has reported that the A’s are a possible destination.
As for Toronto, the team viewed the money as a sunk cost and decided that some as yet unknown player had more potential as to contribute on the field than Tulowitzki did. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. will get an opportunity to play shortstop if the Blue Jays make no other additions. The club’s 40-man roster now stands at 38 players. Toronto is at least listening to offers for Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez. It could be that the team is looking to add multiple players in a trade who would need to be on the 40-man. It’s also possible the team is about to sign a free agent or needs some extra roster space for the Rule 5 draft later this week. Tulowitzki will try to get an opportunity to play for another team while the Blue Jays try to make better use of his roster spot.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Now I’m waiting for the Rockies to announce they’ve moved Story to LF so they can bring Tulo back……
But then where would they put Holliday?
Holliday can DH for the 10 games the play at an AL park.
Looks like it may be the Giants who role the dice.
Really a shame his body didn’t hold up. He was basically as good as Lindor when he was healthy but even in his 20s he was hurt a lot.
This is one of the reasons why I’m so leery of these mega-contracts a lot of teams are throwing at good young pre-free agency players. Like, sure, it might make sense to give Lindor a 10 year deal right now. Right after 2008, it would have made a lot of sense for the Indians to give Grady Sizemore a 10-year, $200 million contract.
Mercifully, this ends the eternal optimism that “next year we’ll see Tulo come back.” He was great, but he’s broken now.
I credit Carson with this outstanding baseball decision.
And when Tulo signs with the As and has 4 fWAR season in 140 games will you still consider it an outstanding baseball decision? The last time Tulo was healthy, he was still an extremely capable baseball player. This entire saga smacks of a front office that wants to tank, not rebuild. Tulo would’ve been very valuable to have around a young team, but I guess stats don’t measure that so it must not be real.
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How long do you wait for someone? He played 66 games in 2016, which did not go well. As a jays fan, I loved the trade at the time, but I thought we were getting a 300 hitter that was a brick wall on defence. We got a great player for 2 months, ever since it’s been a waste. Time for both sides to say “good luck” to the other and part ways.
I think I would have waited until the end of spring training to see how he looked.
It will be interesting to track the Blue Jays’ 40th roster spot, to see what use of it they end up valuing over the sketchy lottery ticket of “hold til spring and see if he looks like a ballplayer”.
Even if he looked OK, so what? They wouldn’t be able to trade him and he isn’t going to be part of the future. Maybe he’d bounce back and be OK for a year, but marginal wins are pointless for rebuilding clubs.
In reality the last time Tulo was healthy he was actually a pretty avg baseball player and Barack Obama was president. Neither of those things have been reality for a couple years now though.
Good luck on that 4fWAR season though. Put some money on that before Vegas wises up, lol.
I would expect a Fangraphs reader to know the difference between possible and probable.
I’m boggled by the notion that people think a clubhouse in any professional sport needs a Tulowizki to be successful.
First off at a quarter of the cost, high end, you can get “veteran leadership”.
Second. Tulo expressly said he wouldn’t even consider playing any position other than short. Some leader.
Third. They’re all adults. They don’t need a role model. When you go to work, do you need to look over someone’s shoulder all day to figure out how to conduct yourself? That’s what they had parents and have coaches for.
If you want someone who can only play one position, hit .220 and have 15 bombs with declining defensive ability to “mentor” the younger players, just sign Brian Dozier. You don’t need to pay a post-prime-premadonna 25mil a year.
“I’m boggled by the notion that people think a clubhouse in any professional sport needs a Tulowizki to be successful.”
I can tell you didn’t play sports at a very competitive level, did you?
It’s not even about a role model as much as someone who has been through a lot in the game and can talk to people easily and share what they learned. If you think people like that aren’t valuable on a club, then you have no idea what it’s like to compete at a high level in anything
They already paid the cost though. Jays aren’t getting anything back in terms of $ here.
What part of 0.1 WAR and a 79 wRC+ is considered “an extremely capable baseball player”? I suppose he could’ve been playing hurt, but he’s not likely to get much healthier than he was back then, anyway.
I miss Carson.
Man, did the rockies ever time that trade right.
Except they had to eat Reyes’ contract and the prospects they got back are busts…. Id call this lose-lose.
Never mind the prospects, that happens all the time. What matters is their perceived value at trade time. Reyes, though…
Rockies won by getting out from under the money.
Reyes had less term.
Based on data from Baseball Reference, Rockies paid about $70m to Reyes, including the buyout. Definitely lose-lose trade.
I never said they won or lost the trade. Simply that they timed it perfectly. You are talking about the return which is a totally different topic.
Having said that, the Jays are going to wind up paying Tulo ~$80 million for 4 years of zero production. Hard to see how that is not worse than the 2 years or whatever the Rockies wound up paying Reyes. And that doesnt even include that Hoffman has actually provided some value (albeit it small) and could still provide value in the future.
Its by no means a great trade for either team but i find it hard to argue that the Rockies did not benefit more than the jays.
This has the usual buy low trio of suspects written all over it – Twins, A’s or Rays fans better prepare for Tulo.
The As have Semien, though yes, Tulo can probably play b etteer D than SEmien on one leg. Ryas are set at SS with Adames, Twins maybe.
I think Semien is a safer bet than Tulo in the field at this point. I know Semien isn’t very good defensively, but he also wasn’t very bad this past season. Defensive metrics year-to-year are flukey and I saw him make some terrible plays, but he seemed fine most of the time.
Something like this would never happen in the NHL, but I guess that’s the only league left where teams and players have actual loyalty to each other. Not to mention hockey players regularly play through injuries far worse than anything Tulo has ever had.
And people wonder why baseball failed in Montreal and nearly failed in Toronto (Paul Beeston proposed Toronto be retracted in the early 00s).
This happens in the NHL, but in a different way. Teams like the leafs bury players in the minors or on “Robidas island”. Usually, baseball players get sent to AAA, but certain players earn the “cut” so they can sign with another team. For Tulo, this is better than buffalo.
Well, there’s the loyalty between the Red Sox and Rusney Castillo ;-P
You mean in the league that has a defined buyout process spelled out in the CBA that has been used numerous times? The Jays would love to be only on the hook for 2/3rds of Tulos’s remaining salary.
Also, the Jays actually did Tulo a favour by releasing him. He is far more likely to get a chance with another team now rather than during spring training or early in the season.
The NHL literally has a buyout period every offseason where teams can get rid of terrible contracts for 1/3 the price. lol
$38 million to walk away is the kind of disloyalty everyone wants, even after giving two of the more Ok months of your life.
Man the loyalty argument/complaint drives me nuts. Every time.
Of course it wouldn’t happen in the NHL. They don’t have any SS on their roster.
Nomar and Tulo should be locks for the HoF now that Baines got in.
Mario Mendoza should be a lock for the HOF now that Baines got in.
Maybe the Yankees have a buy-low candidate? He idolized Jeter, and only needs to last until the All Star break to replace Didi.
I wonder how long it will be before Tulo is wearing an A’s uniform?
Carson needed a roster spot to pick up max schrock in the rule V.
Here are the closest comps I can find using PA and fWAR rate, through age 29 and 30-31 and age 32, debut 1920 onward:
33 NAME
0.8 Paul Blair
-0.3 Rico Petrocelli
1.8 Lance Parrish
1.7 Jim Bottomley
1.7 Brian McCann
The average is 0.9 fWAR; at $8.5M per win he’s worth somewhere between $0 and $15M with an $8M average, so a team that can risk getting nothing from SS, could turn him into something at the deadline perhaps…?
[edit]
Since he has two year deal, technically, the signing team has a league minimum option for 2020 too.
Lance Parrish had a huge 4.6 win bounce back; Bottomley and McCann were worth about half a win, Blair was below replacement and Petrocelli called it quits.
If the Jays were willing to eat the entire contract beyond the league minimum, the comps seem to suggest that there should have been *someone* willing to give them *something* in return.
Agreed, makes me wonder if they actually put in the effort to trade him to every team. Also, I wonder if they have insurance on him. If they do, does it still count if he is playing for another team and they are paying his contract?
He also has a good reputation (not totally deserved imo) as a hard worker/good clubhouse guy, plus he’s a big name. Supposedly this was done now as a “courtesy”, isn’t the $38 million they owe him courtesy enough?
I imagine the Jays did their due diligence but keep in mind Tulo has a full no trade clause (it kicked in as a result of him being traded by Colorado) and he has given the impression that he is not exactly a flexible guy. I suspect moving him would have been nigh impossible even if you could find someone to take him.
This is another issue of the $/WAR. It just doesn’t work like that and it’s annoying to see it used so often. Jody Mercer had 2.5 WAR in the last 2 seasons and projects at about same average this year. He got $5M contract not $10M. Nobody is going to pay a 1 WAR position player $8M a year. Tulo is a 35 YO SS in an era where there are only 2 starting SS over 30 YO and they are both 31. He has a total of 0.1 WAR over the past 2 seasons. If the Jays paid off his entire salary, maybe they’d get a 32 YO reliever back or something, but what’s the point?
But the no-trade clause aside, I was getting at that he would be paid as if he is a <0.1 win player and the comps were generally worth more than that [and Tulo essentially has a league minimum team option for 2020 as well]
As far as what teams pay for wins with only a 1 year commitment, $/ProjWAR:
$10M Jordan Lyles (0.2)
$8.3M Matt Moore (0.3)
$5.7M Donaldson (4.1)
$5.7M Sabathia (1.4)
$5.4M Rosenthal (1.3)
$5.3M Pearce (1.2)
$4.4M Mercer (1.2)
$3.1M Chisenhall (0.9)
$2.2M McCann (0.9)
$1.4M Wainwright (1.4)
That is a pretty wide range. In totla the 1 year(no QO) deals are being paid at $4.7M per projected win, so maybe it would have been better if I posted:
"The average is 0.9 fWAR; at $4.7M per win he’s worth somewhere between $0 and $8.5M with a $4.2M average"
This doesn't change that at 1/$575k with a $575k option for 2020, there is probably some surplus value there.
Did the Blue Jays call every single team and offer to pay Tulowitzki’s salary? I feel like they could’ve gotten a mid tier lower level prospect from some team if they covered the whole thing. Maybe not but if I was a Blue Jay fan I would be disappointed if they didn’t try.
If no team would bite, I question the timing of it. Why not wait until later in the offseason where teams may be more desperate for a utility infielder or pinch hitter, especially when they aren’t completely clogged on the 40 man
Reading between the lines, the sad part is that maybe Tulo is done and going to retire. Perhaps a Rockies signing and then retirement. Otherwise, this move doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe he is still felling pain in his feet or legs or hip and just can’t go anymore.
So the final accounting…The Jays end up paying about $54M more to Tulo than they would have paid Reyes. For that they got about 5 more wins. Most of that was in 2016 when they tied for the Wild Card; with Reyes instead of Tulo they don’t make the playoffs that year. Yes, there were prospects and other players involved and there were probably more cost effective ways to replace Reyes, but overall, not too bad. If the Jays had gotten another year and a couple more WAR out of Tulo, which was a more reasonable assumption at the time of the deal, things would look better.
Curious where you are getting 5 extra wins from? Tulo was worth 4.3 fWAR as a Jay, Reyes accumulated 2.3 fWAR post trade.
bWAR has Tulo at 4.8 and Reyes at -0.2 from the time of the trade until the end of Reyes’ contract.
Curious that you would use bWAR on fangraphs but ok.
The difference seems to be entirely defense. They were actually identical offensively. Seeing as defense is the least reliable part of WAR I would take those 5 wins with a very hefty dose of sodium.
For what its worth, both FG and BP have the difference between Tulo and Reyes as only ~2 wins (fWAR says 2.0, WARP says 2.7). Which, over that span, is not much difference at all.