NEW YORK — At his peak, Troy Tulowitzki’s offensive talents were closer to those of Alex Rodriguez than Derek Jeter.
Twice he hit more than 30 home runs and five times he posted an OPS over .900 — once, he was over 1.000 — and even if those numbers are skewed somewhat by playing 10 seasons in Colorado, they’re still pretty impressive.
Clearly, there is a lot of upside for the Yankees in signing him, especially with Toronto paying most of the freight, to the tune of $38 million over the next three years. At about $550,000 for 2019 the Yankees are getting a player who three times finished in the top 5 of the NL MVP voting for less than the price of Greg Bird.
But the very fact that the Blue Jays were willing to swallow that wad of cash without even taking a look at what Tulowitzki might have left tells you that while the upside is high, the likelihood of Tulowitzki playing back to his early promise is low. Baseball teams, even ones as poorly run as the Blue Jays, are not in the habit of eating that kind of money, or letting potential impact players go, especially within their own division.
That is why it is foolish to confuse the signing of Tulo as a sign that the Yankees have cooled on Manny Machado, or have dropped out of the sweepstakes.
Tulowitzki is insurance, pure and simple, with no assurance that he’ll even make it out of spring training in one piece.
Because the hard truth is, the guy cannot stay healthy. Compared to Tulowitzki, Jacoby Ellsbury is Cal Ripken Jr. When he has been on the field, he has been a whole lot of great, but Tulo hasn’t had anything close to a full season since 2011, when he played 143 games. He didn’t play a single game last season and only 66 in 2017. Since 2015, he has played a total of 197 games. Even Ellsbury, who also missed 2018, made it into 270 over the same period.
Add to that the fact that three months ago, Tulowitzki turned 34 and you would have to be a fool to bet on his playing as much as a half-season for the Yankees, or anybody, in 2019. The website baseball-reference.com projects Tulowitzki will get 205 at-bats in the coming season, with an OPS of .712. Fangraphs.com is slightly more optimistic about his 2019 durability, projecting 330 ABs, but expects comparably anemic production from his once-formidable bat.
All of this could turn out to be wrong, of course. Tulowitzki, who apparently displayed some of his old ability in a public workout witnessed by a bunch of teams, including the Yankees, in December, might somehow turn the clock back to 2011, when he went .302-30-105 with a .916 OPS for the Rockies.
But again, I wouldn’t wager a nickel of my hard-earned money on it. I’ll leave that to the Yankees, who can certainly afford to gamble a half-million bucks on just about anyone.
At best, maybe the 2019 Yankees can utilize Tulowitzki they way they squeezed 113 games out of Neil Walker in 2018. He wound up hitting 11 home runs and came up with more than his share of big hits. But in no way can they possibly be viewing Tulowitzki as an everyday shortstop, even for the half-year Didi Gregorius is likely to miss.
And certainly, no one in the Yankees front office would even try to pass him off as the consolation prize for the second-place finisher in the Machado sweepstakes.
No, the play is still to sign Machado, the best player to hit the free-agent market in decades (Sorry, Bryce and Scott) and a player who fills an immediate area of need for a team that has a lot of catching up to do in the AL East.
Signing Machado checks off a lot of boxes for the Yankees. Not only does it give them a generational talent in the prime of his career, it affords them great roster flexibility to deal someone like Miguel Andujar, a significant talent in his own right, for one more starting pitcher. (Sorry, but I’m not sure I would be counting too strongly on CC Sabathia following his angioplasty last month).
Plus, it gives the Yankees the kind of star-quality personality they have always relied upon to sell tickets and boost TV ratings, the kind of player they have lacked since A-Rod’s enforced retirement in 2016. This takes on added importance as the Yankees weigh buying back the portion of the YES Network they lost to Fox a couple of years ago.
And knowing the history of this franchise, if they want Machado bad enough, they will get him, and it really doesn’t matter who else is in the game. It’s unlikely the hang-up is dollars or years; it might well be that there are some in the organization still unconvinced of Machado’s work ethic or emotional makeup for the relentless fan and media scrutiny that comes with playing in the Bronx.
These issues are separate and apart from Troy Tulowitzki, a nice spare part that the Yankees were able to grab cheaply, “as is,” with no guarantee that he will still be operational once they get him home from the store.
Tulowitzki is little more than a hope.
Manny Machado is a dream.
And one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.