Troy Tulowitzki Leaves Coors
Troy Tulowitzki managed to stay healthy enough to accumulate the most plate appearances he has since 2011. Surely that would have resulted in an excellent fantasy season, and perhaps some profit for those owners who were willing to take on such an injury risk. But that’s not what happened. Though he still finished third among shortstops in fantasy value, he earned just below $10 and posted the second worst wOBA of his career. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was then traded out of the cozy confines of Coors Field, making forecasting his near-term future difficult.
There have been a number of star hitters in Colorado that eventually moved onto less green pastures. The question was always how they would perform without the benefit of that thin air. In 2015, Coors Field was by far the best offensive environment in baseball. It sported a 117 overall park factor, while the next highest was just 106. We know that the park boosts home runs, but it also inflates all types of hits, resulting in serious BABIP inflation.
Unfortunately, Tulowitzki’s time in Colorado came to an end when he was traded as part of a blockbuster deadline deal. And although he hit better at home like players typically do, his home/road splits weren’t actually as stark as others who called Coors home for a significant period of time:
| Home / Away | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | wOBA | wRC+ |
| Home | 9.9% | 15.6% | 0.235 | 0.340 | 0.404 | 128 |
| Away | 9.6% | 17.2% | 0.188 | 0.301 | 0.350 | 116 |
Those are actually some fairly reasonable splits, which should give us confidence that Tulo won’t suffer too dramatic a decline in a full season with the Blue Jays. But decline he did upon his arrival in Toronto. It’s a tiny sample, of course, but all we have right now of the non-Rockie Tulowitzki:
| BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | wOBA | wRC+ |
| 7.7% | 23.0% | 0.141 | 0.291 | 0.307 | 91 |
Compared to his career home marks, his power declined precipitously, while his BABIP plummeted. This could be due to the departure from Coors or simply a random 183 plate appearance sample in which Tulo was just not at his best. Coors Field boosts line drives, but his LD% spiked with Toronto, while his IFFB% dropped. Normally, those are good signs and go hand-in-hand with a jump in BABIP. So it’s a bit curious that his BABIP fell drastically from the .351 mark he posted while with Colorado (though not all of that came at Coors). Maybe a bit of poor luck was involved.
With regards to the power, his HR/FB rate actually increased with Toronto, but his ISO tumbled thanks to a decline in his fly ball rate. Essentially, he traded fly balls for line drives. It didn’t work this time, but this explanation suggests no one should panic about his future performance just yet. Or, at least based on his small sample results this year with the Jays.
It would be silly to ignore the fact that regardless of what park he called home this year, his skills eroded. His walk and strikeout rates were career worsts, while his ISO and wOBA marks second worst. Typically, we would chalk this up to the brittle Tulowitzki playing through injury. But he remained relatively healthy all season, with the exception of the rib injury he suffered in Toronto that ended his year early. So it didn’t appear like he was suffering through any sort of injuries throughout the season that would hamper his performance.
He’s now on the wrong side of 30 though, so perhaps a gradual decline should be expected. The good news is that he didn’t move to a pitcher’s haven, so at least he will continue to enjoy a hitting friendly home park. Furthermore, the Blue Jays lineup remains absolutely stacked, giving him plenty of opportunities to drive in runners.
The injury risk will always be there. But at least now he should come cheaper than he has in a while, possibly since after his 2008 season. It might make him a decent value for a change and a worthy target at a weak position.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Thanks POD. Enjoying your early offseason posts. Recaps are fun, but I am already in full preparation mode for next season and these articles are exaclt ywhat I’m looking for at this time.
I think the key point you make is that Tulo’s skills in general have deteriorated. Lowest contact rate and highest Sw Str since his first season. That, combined with injury risk should make him cheaper, but I am finding that his owners are predictably sticky with their valuation of him.
Small correction: Crack in the left scapula… not a rib injury. Like to see what he can do with a full season in Toronto. He just didn’t seem too comfortable after the trade and like you noted he had some luck issues with hard contact going for outs.
he was pretty stellar on defense during his time with the Jays, so I dont think physical decline is the main culprit here. just a slump that i think was exacerbated and extended by the trade shaking him up mentally. doesnt take much to throw a hitter off given the milliseconds that execution takes place in. maybe he wont be Rockies Tulo anymore, but i think a 110 wRC+ is a solid projection, which in a lineup that is leaps and bounds ahead of every other, makes him a formidable fantasy option.
Not convinced he’ll be in Toronto next year.
Does not seem like he wants to be there.
Could totally see the Jays flipping him for pitching with multiple years of team control.
The Mets claim to not be in a position to take on salary but that type of situation would make sense for Toronto: Tulo for a MLB pitcher who’s only-done-it-once (like a Matz) plus some fringy prospect Shapiro thought had potential. (Shapiro is apparently bitter that Toronto emptied the farm for this year’s run.) Or Toronto throws in money and gets an extra prospect or two.
Devon Travis is going under the knife and will likely miss spring training at least. Less likely that Tulo gets traded with that news.
Good point, but they could use the salary saved in the Tulo trade to buy MI.
Tulo just seems unhappy and if the Jays can ship him out it probably makes sense, given that he is older and misses a fair amount of time through injuries. The Jays need pitching, and seem to need to trade for talent as opposed to being able to buy it (Russell Martin was the exception that proved the rule in that only the Jays seemed willimng to offer at least one extra year).
I’m not sure if there’s objective data on this, but it seems to me that a potential reason for decline after the trade is the transition to a new league. Tulo has spent his entire career in the NL, learning those pitchers and parks, and had to suddenly is adjusting to first-time exposure to new ones. Surely this is worth a mention in potential factors, right?
There’s a lot of factors that come into play when looking at Tulo’s drop in performance last year. Most have been mentioned but I think the biggest one is the hip surgery he had late last season. So, not only did it affect his ability to do much strength training during the off season but there had to be some residual impact from the surgery like stiffness and weakness in the hip surgery area.
He was clearly a different hitter from the very start of 2015. He was starting his swing earlier, pulling more, and not driving the ball with his usual authority. Those are all signs of a guy working with a weaker lower half. My guess is a full off season of strength and conditioning (instead of rehab) is going to make a big difference for him.