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The season that was: Troy Tulowitzki

By Tom Dakers
Peter Llewellyn-USA TODAY Sports

I'll admit the Troy Tulowitzki trade surprised me. I thought that, with his contract, Jose Reyes was untradable, but I shouldn't have doubted that Alex could trade anyone if he put his mind to it. Anyone that could trade Vernon Wells can do the impossible.

Unfortunately, unlike Wells deal, Alex had to send some good young players to get anyone to take Reyes. Jeff Hoffman and Miguel Castro also went to the Diamondbacks, along with Reyes. Hoffman is the one I'm worried that we'll regret losing but there has to be a price to getting anyone good.

I'll admit, I really enjoyed Reyes, I like players that have a good time playing the game. I figure if you can't have fun make millions to play a kid's game, there isn't much that is ever going to make you happy. I know his defense was lacking, but some of the criticism, like Jerry Howarth's, was over the top.

But I was very happy with the trade. Most of us were. Our poll on the trade ran 75% like it, 18% neutral and 7% hated it. Some worried that we might be picking up Jose Reyes 2.0, which is a fair concern, but I think Troy is a better player than Reyes ever was.

Troy didn't hit that well, and missed some time with injury, in his time with the Jays.

Year   Age  Tm  G  AB  R  H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS OPS+
2015    30 COL 87 323 46 97 19  0 12  53  0  0 24 72 .300 .348 .471 .818  107
2015    30 TOR 41 163 31 39  8  0  5  17  1  0 14 42 .239 .317 .380 .697   92

Provided by "Baseball-Reference.com":

Baseball Reference has him at a 1.5 WAR with the Rockies and a 1.4 WAR with the Jays. They figure his defense was much better with the Jays. His defense looked terrific to me. FanGraphs doesn't breakdown the WAR between the teams, gives him a 2.3 WAR for the season, making him worth $18.6 million.

He had a pretty poor ALDS, hitting .095/.174/.238 with 1 home run and 4 RBI. His ALCS was better, .304/.304/.522 with 1 home run and 7 RBI.

In all, he had a .335 wOBA and a 100 WC+.

Compared to 2014 Troy walked a lot less (7.1% down from 13.3) and struck out more (21.3% up from 15.2). He hit slightly fewer line drives (22.1% from 23.3), more ground ball (41.0% up from 37.8) and fewer fly balls (.37.0% from .38.9). He didn't get near as many fly ball leave the park (12.2% from 20.6).

His BABIP was a little lower than 2014 (.335 down from 355).

He hit lefties (.350/.400/.540) far far better than right-handers (.262/.321/.415).

He hit better at Coors Field (.301/.352/.482) than at Rogers (.250/.337/.443) and better at either than he hit on the road (.276/.327/.409).

Gibby put him in the leadoff spot and he didn't hit well there (.227/.325/.373) so he got moved, but then he didn't him much better in the 5th spot (.239/.265/.348) after John made the change.

Tulowitzki by month:

  • April: .308/.321/.526 with 2 home runs and 10 RBI.
  • May: .262/.284/.393 with 2 home runs and 10 RBI.
  • June: .381/.439/.526 with 4 home runs and 21 RBI.
  • July: .244/.333/.474 with 5 home runs and 15 RBI
  • August: .214/.325/.340 with 3 home runs and 8 RBI.
  • Sept/Oct: .261/.271/.370 with 1 home run and 6 RBI.
The injury was on September 12th and he was out until October 2.

Defensively, FanGraphs had him at a 4.9 UZR/150. I thought his defense looked better than that, but I didn't see him much when he was in the NL. He had 8 errors before the trade and no errors after joining us. Harold Reynolds wouldn't stop talking about his old glove (he'd laugh at my glove, I've had the same one since I was 14), but it seemed to work.

After thinking that Reyes would have to be moved off of shortstop, I've no worries that Tulo will have to be move, at least for the next couple of seasons.

His longest hitting streak was 22 games, running from mid-June to early July, when he was a Rockie. Longest on base streak was 41 games. The longest he went without a home run was 21 games, also as a Rockie.

FanGraphs has him at 0.3 of a run better than average as a base runner.

His favorite team to face? He hit .409/409/.591 in 5 games against the Brewers. As well, he hit .349/.417/.558 with 2 home runs in 12 games against the Diamondbacks. Least favorite? He hit .063/.118/.063  in 5 games vs. the Reds.


His first game, as a Jay, turned out to be a tease didn't it? 3 for 5, a home run, 2 doubles, 3 runs, 3 RBI. I missed that out on my list of favorite moments of the season. It wasn't even a full house, but the place rocked.

I still like the idea of him leading off, but I doubt we'll ever see it happen again.

Troy is owed $20 million for the next 4 seasons, then $14 million in 2020 and the Jays have a team option for $15 million ($4 million buyout) for 2021. He is 36 in 2021. It will be interesting to see how he ages. What would you say the odds are that we get full value out of the rest of that contract?

Next year should be fun, with Troy playing (please no injuries) in the lineup with Edwin, Jose and Josh (get the feeling the left-handed pitchers will be able to take a little vacation when the Jays come to town?). I enjoyed watching him play defense, in his couple of months with the Jays, I hope to enjoy his offense more next year. I guess, with Troy and Devon Travis up the middle, we likely have the highest odds in the league of a freak injury, but, if they can avoid missing much time, our offense could even be better than last year.

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