The life-long Yankee fan, who grew up worshipping Derek Jeter has called it quits. No, I’m not talking about myself, Troy Tulowitzki announced Thursday afternoon that he is retiring from Major League Baseball.
To say this is how Tulo imagined his career ending would be a bold-faced lie. Tulowitzki could not stay healthy for the past several years and that continued this year when he hurt his calf in April and never returned to the New York Yankees. In fact, he was unable to play any games for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2018 which led the Jays cutting him, despite the large sum of money he was still owed by the club. The ending of his career was certainly a disappointment, playing just five games this season for the Yankees. However, as he said in his press release, Tulo was happy to have his life-long dream of being a professional baseball player fulfilled and his other dream of being a New York Yankee also being satisfied. Tulo was an extremely likeable player and easy to root for. I’m not saying I watched Rockies’ games when he was in his prime, but during Spring Training, he appeared on the R2C2 podcast and I was enamored with the way he carried himself and how open he was about the bad breaks he has had in his career. He said what every fan wants to hear from a player, “I just want to win and do anything to help winning;” but he also said that it was important to him for his son to actually see him as a major league baseball player, instead of just hearing stories and watching highlights. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
It seems like every time a notable player retires, fans and analysts jump right into the “is he a hall of famer?” debate, so let’s do our civic duty and think about it. It is undeniable that Tulo had a streak where he was the best player at his position. Brian Cashman was even quoted telling Jeter that he would rather have Tulowitzki play shortstop for the New York Yankees than resign him! I would think that to kick Jeter out of pinstripes, the player replacing him would have to be pretty extraordinary. Tulowitzki had three straight seasons, 2009-2011 finishing in the top ten of MVP voting. In that same stretch, he won back to back gold glove awards and silver slugger awards. In 2010, he even joined Babe Ruth as the only other player to have 15+ homeruns and 40+ RBI in the month of September. An injury plagued 2012 sidelined him for most of the year, but came back to slash .312/.391/.540 in 2013 and finished 17th in MVP voting in 2013. From there, the injuries kept coming and he had only one productive season with over 100 games played. He did play over 100 games in 2016 but he was simply not a good player and I think it was truly the end of the beginning.
Clearly, it started out well for Tulo, but he just could not stay healthy. At minimum, he was on pace for a real shot at being a hall of fame shortstop; at most, he could have been in the discussion for the best shortstop in MLB history, but at the end of the day, the career .290 hitter, five time all-star, two time gold glove winner, and two time silver slugger is going to fall short of Cooperstown.
