Troy Tulowitzki is hitting .128 this season, with a paltry on-base percentage of .222 and a god awful on-base plus slugging (OPS) percentage of .478 in 54 plate appearances (heading into play Monday).

Now, I’m not a fan of evaluating talent during world-wide Small Sample Size Month, a.k.a., April. The first month of a baseball season is full of flukes and false prophecies, and many great players are slow starters.

Tulowitzki, however, is not one of them.

Going back through Tulo’s game logs during previous April campaigns reveals an OPS (for the last six seasons) that consistently averages well above .900, with several jumps into the 1.200 range. That makes Tulo’s current .478 OPS more than just a departure from the mean—it makes him less effective than some pitchers have been at the plate this season.

But April struggles alone aren’t the reason we’re talking about Tulo here. It’s the struggles Tulo has had since becoming a Blue Jay. His Toronto debut last season, where he posted a slash of .239/.317/.380—good for an OPS of .697—says this season’s struggles are less stumble and more continuation of a downward trend.

Until Tulo’s 2015 offensive decline and present 2016 stumble, he was easily considered the best all-around shortstop in baseball. His offensive prowess was the stuff of legends and his Gold Glove defensive ability is unquestionable. In a sport that pays you future monies for past production, he’s more than earned his 10-year, $157.75-million deal.

But Tulo’s possession of MLB’s best shortstop title would have been lost, either this year or in the coming years, simply because shortstop is a young man’s position. There may not be many as good as Tulo is over the fullness of their career, but young stars with range and pop bloom eternal in this sport. It was only a matter of time until Tulo’s title was usurped.

However, no one would have suspected him of heading into the territory of backup-calibre player so quickly, but that’s the direction his stats are currently trending.

MacArthur: No reason to panic over Tulowitzki....yet TSN 1050 Blue Jays Reporter Scott MacArthur joins Dave Naylor and Michael Landsberg in the Morning to discuss the early struggles of Troy Tulowitzki following his slow start in 2016.

It’s still early for 2016. I’ll say that again: it’s early in 2016. But, the Blue Jays have to be wondering where the real Tulo is. Did the Rockies trade them a clone and rename the real Tulo Trevor Story? What has changed in Tulo’s swing or offensive approach to create such a sharp decline? Did something not make the trip to Toronto from Denver?



At first, I thought Tulo’s struggles were a result of facing better pitching in the American League, but that’s not accurate. Playing in the National League he regularly faced arms like Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner and Zack Greinke.

Then there was a postulation that Tulo was facing more right-handed power pitching, meaning more hard sliders and splitters that could induce more strikeouts and cripple Tulo’s timing. This theory had some merit when you look at Tulo’s career numbers against lefties — he mashes them, even the good ones — versus his career numbers against right handers — he mashes them too, just not as much as he mashes lefties.

Don’t get too attached to this theory either — it’s splitting hairs. You don’t get to be one of the absolute best hitters in baseball by not hitting everyone pretty well. And the composition of pitchers in the AL East was not so different from that in the NL West that Tulo couldn’t make the jump.

Just to be sure, I went to Brooksbaseball.net to see the pitch selection trends Tulo was seeing from 2013-2016, numbers that include his time with the Rockies and the Jays.

There is very little data to suggest that anything has changed in his diet of pitches seen. Here is the mix of pitch types he has seen from 2013 to today:



A few spikes in the hard stuff, but nothing that screams, “new approach to slay Tulo!”

Next I took a look at the zone profile for Tulo to see if it wasn’t the mixes of pitches he was seeing, but a change in the overall location he was getting pitched. Tulo has excellent plate coverage. He has power to all fields, and can turn on pitches just as well as he can extend for an opposite field home run. There isn’t one glaring hole in his swing; no one single pitch that is the bane of his existence. Believe me, if there was, we’d have heard about it long before now. All of baseball, specifically the pitching staffs in the NL, would have zeroed in on it.

Here is Tulo’s aggregate pitches seen heat map from 2010 to the day he was traded to the Blue Jays:



Here is Tulo’s aggregate pitches seen heat map since becoming a Jay:

Please, point out the glaringly obvious tactical shift that the opposition has made. I’ll wait.

Here are the heat maps that track the aggregate locations of splitters and sliders seen; those power out pitches Tulo was supposedly facing more of. First, Tulo’s career from 2010-15 before joining the Blue Jays:

And now 2015 to present, as a Blue Jay:

Uncanny, huh?

So, what does this tell us about Tulo’s struggles? It’s not the league, it’s not the pitching, and it’s not the calibre of pitching or the pitch selection. It’s not even the location. It’s Tulo. He’s simply not making the adjustment.

In fact, if you want to see more clearly what you already know, here is a heat map showing it, below. Tulo has always been a good mistake hitter, and he can crush pitches that are up, up in, and up away with equal efficacy. But lately, he’s been missing them.

Here is Tulo’s production when he was with the Rockies in 2015 before joining the Jays:

Now, here it is as a Jay:

See some differences now? We’ve already established that he’s not getting an astoundingly different diet of pitches. AL pitchers are making the same mistakes to him that NL pitchers were. He’s just not doing what he’s usually does to them.

Why? That’s the $157.75-million (over 10 years) question.

Hint: It’s not because his swing has changed—that doesn’t happen after a plane ride to Canada.

There is, however, something that does change on a plane ride to Canada. I’m not sure you’re going to buy it, but I’ll give you my two cents on the matter anyway. Here goes: Tulo doesn’t want to play in Toronto, and Toronto is never going to see the kind of upside from Tulo that the Rockies did until he does.

I think that, in trading for Tulowitzki, the Blue Jays got a true professional who will never complain about how he wishes he was someplace else. But he won’t have to. His performance will speak volumes.

Hawkins: Tulowitzki will bounce back in big way Longtime MLB Reliever and former Blue Jay LaTroy Hawkins joins Dave Naylor and Michael Landsberg in the Morning and discuss the slow start of Troy Tulowitzki and how his former teammate can come back.

I think Tulo is used to being the hero, being loved in a town that he loved, and he had his future mapped out in Colorado. Then, suddenly and without this consent, that all changed. Now his job feels like work instead of like a dream realized. I think all the timing adjustments and scouting reports in the world aren’t going to fix what only Tulo can fix—the desire to make the best of the new situation. Until he commits to his new living and working arrangement, I don’t think you’ll see him blossom with the Blue Jays.

The bright side is, even if Tulo continues to struggle at the plate, he’s still an amazing defender, and that’s a side of him that wont slump. But it’s difficult for star of his calibre, who was used to being one of the best in a league, to take a back seat on a roster full of stars, in a division full of stars, in a town he never asked to be in.

It was crucial for Tulo to get off to good start this 2016, and he still can. But every hitless game he has this season will just be another stone tipping the scale toward checking out.