Tulowitzki offers short answer to his return
From my cold dead hands …
No, wait. That was gun-owner Charlton Heston, a.k.a. Moses, a.k.a. president of the NRA, a.k.a. God. Also, dead.
But the sentiment applies just as insistently for Troy Tulowitzki, on the subject of playing shortstop.
A job he hasn’t actually fulfilled with the Blue Jays since July 28, 2017, all wracked up with injuries and prolonged postsurgery discomfort. A job he intends to reclaim next season.
“I try to be the best shortstop in the game,” Tulowitzki said. “There’s been plenty of years I’ve been the best shortstop in the game. There have been times when I’ve been the worst shortstop in the game. And if we had anybody that was worth anything, they should have took my job.”
The position has been staked out by others for more than a year now, admittedly with a cluster of bodies rotating through the middle infield. To say nothing of the marquee prospects who will be upward-bound by and by, most notably Bo Bichette.
They’d have to wrench it away from his clutches.
So the question was posed, during scrum session with reporters on Sunday, would Tulowitzki accept a position shift, should management ask? “I just said I’m a shortstop.” But hey, if a better man, that is to say a better player, makes a superior bid for the role? “Then I’ll pack my bags and go home.” That’s pretty definitive. Almost an ultimatum.
He has two years left on his contract after this season, and Toronto is on the hook for $20 million in 2019 and $14 million in 2020, with a $15-million club option for 2021 and a $4-million buyout. Tulowitzki is that confident that he will live to shortstop another day with the Jays, because of the obvious and the intangible.
“I do think I bring a lot more than what you guys see out there and that’s part of baseball. There’s stuff behind the scenes that goes on. There’s stuff I try to help my teammates with. I think I do bring veteran leadership. Those things shouldn’t go unnoticed.
“You guys know about those qualities that certain people have. Or if they’re honest with you. You want honest answers, you don’t want fake answers. And that’s who I am. I’m honestly excited for what’s ahead.”
It was an intriguing session, with Tulowitzki back around the club over the weekend — at times sounding defiant, at times rather wistful. But also throwing down the gauntlet, to both teammates and management.
He wouldn’t speculate about the impact of his extended absence from the clubhouse. “You have to ask those guys. But what I hope their answer is? That yeah, they definitely missed me. I want to be wanted.”
Is he? Clearly Tulowitzki was an integral part of the team that traded for him in 2015 and went from a game below .500 to the post-season for the first time in 22 years. But his last full season was in 2016.
This team is no longer that team. Management has changed; the turnover has been almost complete. The Jays are in rebuild mode now, hell-bent on getting younger.
And Tulowitzki could be an obstacle in the transition.
“I don’t believe in rebuilds, honestly. You look around the league, there’s some good examples of teams that are pretty young that win games. I do believe in coming back next year and whoever my teammates are, we can win with young players.”
About that 2015 outfit: “We had that belief that we can win. That’s what needs to be brought back. Not necessarily to go sign every free agent. We need the belief and we need that fight to win.
“That’s definitely going to be a challenge for me, being a veteran player. But you can’t do that when you’re not playing. So next year when I am playing, I’ll have the ability to hopefully do that and make guys accountable for what they do, try to get them better on a daily basis.” Manager John Gibbons mentioned Saturday that nobody should expect to see Tulowitzki back on the active roster in 2018.
Tulowitzki was wry about that. “If I read some headlines, I’m not. Is that what Gibby said yesterday? OK, if Gibby says that, then those are the rules and I stick by them.”
What can’t be denied is that the five-time all-star — after first sustaining a ligament tear and compression fracture in his right ankle in a collision at first base last July and then, this past April, undergoing surgery to remove bone spurs from both heels — has been a long time trying to attain game fitness again, despite all the work down in Florida.
“There were times when I walked off the backfield and it was not very good. And there were times where I walked off and said, ‘Man, I might be able to play in a week.’ It’s a lot of different emotions, it’s a roller coaster.
“I listen to my body and what it’s telling me. My body told me, ‘Hey, you’re not ready to play yet,’ and when you do come back you want to be the player that you know you can be and you want to do it the right way.”
He expects to be all-out ready by spring training 2019. The doubters don’t faze him.
“Good players that I’ve known, when they’re backed up against a wall, they answer. You need things to motivate you. That’s going to definitely be motivation, hearing those things said about me. You use those things to fuel your fire.”
But at shortstop, get it? His mantra and his manifesto.
“I’m of the Cal Ripken mode. Positioning is very important. My experience out there proves that you don’t have to be the quickest guy. It’s all about reads, it’s about knowing the game, it’s about baseball smarts, it’s about angles.”
OK, but Ripken moved to third base as part of a shakeup in 1996. Tulowitzki doesn’t mention that.
He does, however, give chops to Aledmys Diaz, who’s acquitted himself rather well at short, stronger as this season has progressed.
“I would say Diaz has been our most improved player. Man, he’s made huge strides. The player I see out on the field wasn’t the same guy who came to spring training. I tell him that every single day too.”
Just don’t go thinking you own it, Aledmys.
“I would love for it to be a competition. Because that makes the team better. I remember being a rookie and people thinking I had no chance to make the team out of spring training. I had to beat out a veteran.”
He was 21 then. He’s 33 now. The shoe’s on the other foot, achy heels and all.