Troy Tulowitzki stirs things up with New York appearance

Troy Tulowitzki was in Philadelphia seeing his doctor this past weekend. He then made a trip to New York to see his mother and to see his childhood hero Derek Jeter play baseball in person one last time.

That is the nice version of the story. The murkier version, the one getting more attention, has to do with the fact that many people want Tulowitzki to be traded to the Yankees. The more that people are convinced that Tulo wants the same, the more fuel gets thrown on the fire.

The question, one to which I do not know the answer, is this: does Tulowitzki give up the privilege to go watch his childhood hero play in person if the current context of his career dictates that it will be poor form?

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In a different context this would be nothing. The primary hypothetical world where this would be OK would be if the Rockies were a good baseball team. It might also be OK if it weren’t the Yankees and it weren’t in the midst of swirling trade rumors about Tulowitzki as a franchise player.

That is not how things are, however. And given the fact that Tulo has opened up recently about being open to the idea of a trade out of Colorado, with many people connecting him to the Yankees. The world is waiting for him to formally demand a trade.

For my part I do not believe that Tulowitzki was naive about the attention this decision would get. This guy has been way too thoughtful and way too guarded over the years for me to think he didn’t know this had the potential to blow up. I think he just knew and he just did it anyway.

Say this: for a guy who tries so hard to stay out of the spotlight off the field, this was a surefire way to get attention.

As for my own opinion, informed as it is by biases, I think this is harmless. I find no problem with it, and if the upshot is that this shows Tulowitzki wants to be a member of the Yankees, well…didn’t we know that anyway? Isn’t that the most obvious and least interesting part of these rumors? Of course he wants to follow Jeter, a Hall of Famer who happens to be his hero, and play for the best franchise in the sport.

It makes me physically ill to think of Tulo as a Yankee, but the idea that he is “open” to playing in New York after Jeter, something that multiple writers have “scooped” as “reports”, seems comically obvious to me.

I do believe that Brett Anderson‘s sarcastic tweet, complete with followup tweet, is telling:

Reading too much into anything on Twitter is not useful, but I will say that I am a big believer in this saying: humor is truth turned sideways.

I don’t imagine this move by Tulo played well in the locker room.

Finally, there is the non-reaction from Walt Weiss (courtesy of the Denver Post):

"“I think it was a pretty innocent situation that got carried away, I guess, because of all of the rumors during the winter about him and the Yankees, and Jeter and all of that stuff. That fueled that fire.“He told me he was going to go see his mom, before that procedure was done, and she’s in New York. So I think at lot more has been made of it than there actually was.”"

I also don’t believe Weiss when he says that he is as indifferent to this whole thing.

The Rockies have been a mess this season, so even if Tulowitzki’s Jeter-loving motives are pure, it still looks like he is making eyes at another team while his teammates struggle to make up for his absence. Considering how old-school Weiss is, my instinct is that his answer behind closed doors might not match this one.

It will be interesting to see how Tulo addresses this situation in coming days, though the odds are pretty good that he won’t at all, only adding to the collective frustration.