Farewell, Tulo

July 26, 2019

Kyle Bishop reflects on the career and legacy of Troy Tulowitzki, one of the best shortstops in both real and fantasy baseball during his prime.

There are any number of ways in which baseball can serve as a metaphor for life. These have been explored, with varying degrees of skill, in plenty of creative works through the years.

As I grow older and the sport skews in the opposite direction, baseball inspires more and more pensivity. The game belongs now to players who are younger than me, in some cases by a decade or more; the stars who ruled the game when I was the age of this new crop of studs are beginning to fade away. This is inevitable, but it doesn't get any easier to watch time pad its undefeated record.

The news on Thursday that Troy Tulowitzki has elected to retire wasn't a surprise. The veteran had played in just 71 games since the start of the 2017 season, and just five in the last two years as a decade full of injuries finally caught up to him. It did, however, inspire some sadness. Tulowitzki will be 35 in October; he's three years older than I am.

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Happy Trails

Tulowitzki made his debut back in 2006, at the tender age of 21. He reached the majors only 15 months after the Rockies selected him the first round of the 2005 amateur draft, and though he struggled in his September cameo (.240/.318/.292), that rapid ascension suggested a bright future lay ahead of him. It didn't take long to arrive. Tulowitzki hit .291/.359/.479 with 24 home runs, 104 runs scored, and 99 RBI the following year, in his official rookie season. He also played fantastic defense at shortstop. He finished second in voting for both Rookie of the Year and Gold Glove honors to Ryan Braun and Jimmy Rollins, respectively. He did capture the Fielding Bible award, though, and got revenge on Rollins in October.

The Rockies weren't even supposed to be in the postseason that year. They were coming off their sixth straight losing season, and after a loss to the Marlins on September 15, their record stood at 76-72, six and a half games behind the Padres for the division lead. They proceeded to win 14 of their final 15 games, including a wild Game 163 over San Diego to steal the NL wild card berth. They then swept Rollins' Phillies (who had completed their own incredible comeback to take the NL East title from the Mets) and the Diamondbacks. Tulowitzki was a key factor in that insane 21-1 stretch, including scoring the tying run in Game 163 in the bottom of the 13th inning. Though the Red Sox unceremoniously ended the Rockies' miracle run with a World Series sweep, Denver had embraced their baseball team after a decade-plus mediocrity.

2008 would not be kind to either Tulowitzki or the Rockies. The shortstop suffered a torn quad in late April, which cost him two months. Shortly after returning to action, he sustained a cut to his hand that required 16 stitches after slamming his bat to the ground in frustration. Ultimately, Tulo hit just .263/.332/.401 with eight homers and the Rockies finished 14 games under .500. Both player and team bounced back the following year. Tulowitzki had what wound up as the best season of his career, hitting .297/.377/.552 with 32 homers, 101 runs, 92 RBI, and 20 stolen bases. That helped the Rockies capture the wild-card for the second time in three years, though they lost a rematch with the Phillies in the Division Series.

It was the last time that Tulowitzki would play 150 games in a season, and not coincidentally, the last time the Rockies would qualify for the postseason with him on the roster. Over the next five years, Tulo was uniformly excellent when on the field, amassing a .940 OPS and making three All-Star teams. The problem, of course, was health. Due to a wide variety of injuries, he averaged just 106 games per season. Fantasy owners argued over whether or not he was worth the high draft cost required to land his services given his propensity for missing significant chunks of time. In 2015, the question quickly became academic. Tulowitzki was traded to Toronto at the deadline that year and slumped badly in the aftermath, never to recover his former glory. After a decent but underwhelming 2016, the bottom fell out.

Like Miguel Cabrera (who got this treatment from me last summer, although he remains active), Tulowitzki was a regular presence on my home league roster for a large portion of its dynastic run. I managed to sell him off in a deal for then-rookie Carlos Correa just before the downturn came, correctly predicting that Tulo plus turf equaled bad news. But I routinely owned him in that league and many others because despite his frequent injuries, there was no other shortstop who could produce like him. That seems quaint now with the embarrassment of riches at the position, but it's the truth. Even 100 or so games of Tulo plus a waiver wire replacement was usually better than a full season from anyone else at the position.

We hadn't seen much of him on a baseball field lately, but I'm still sad to see him go. Tulowitzki said in his retirement statement that he hopes to remain in the game as an instructor. Here's hoping he gets the opportunity, after his body took him away from the game so often during his playing career.

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