Blue Jays: Some ideas on how to trade Troy Tulowitzki

If It Makes You Feel Better

I’m not sure how many more trade fits there are around the league, unless of course the Blue Jays were willing to eat all, or the majority of the money remaining on Tulowitzki’s contract. In that scenario, the possibilities would open up a lot more, although the acquiring team would still be taking a gamble that the former star could still contribute.

As I looked through the possible trade candidates across the league, it did make me feel a little bit better to see that there are worse contracts in baseball. Even if it’s frustrating to see Tulowitzki paid very well to sit on the disabled list for the better part of two years, it could always be worse.

Robinson Cano- 5 years, 120 million remaining 

The former Yankee signed a huge 10 year, 240 million dollar deal with the Mariners, and he’s only halfway through it so far. The soon to be 36 year old had a solid year when he was present in 2018, but an 80 game suspension for the use of performance enhancing drugs put a big damper on his season, on Seattle’s playoff chances, and on Robinson Cano‘s legacy.

Albert Pujols- 3 years, 87 million 

He might be one of the greatest hitters of all-time, but I’m willing to bet the Angels wish there weren’t three years left on his contract. Albert Pujols has remained a reasonable power threat, but beyond that he’s a very tough player for the Angels to keep putting in the lineup. With the presence of Shohei Ohtani, Pujols has had to spend more time at first base, which doesn’t help his value either.

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There’s a pretty good chance he plays out the remainder of the deal unless he’s bought out, so the Angels are definitely paying now for what they had earlier in his contract. (And the Cardinals definitely got the best of him)

Miguel Cabrera- 6 years, 160 million remaining 

Like Pujols, Miguel Cabrera profiles as one of the greatest hitters to ever pick up a bat, and should be a lock as a first-ballot Hall of Famer when the time comes.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, it’s a long time before his current contract is up, and it pays him a pretty significant sum through the remainder of his career. He’ll make 30 million in each of 2019-21, 32 million in 2022-2023, and has a sixth year at the end for eight million.

In this case, Cabrera is a legacy figure for the Tigers, and I’m sure late owner Mike Ilitch would still be in favour of the contract today even given everything that’s happened since it was signed. That said, it’s going to be a huge boat anchor for the Detroit front office as they attempt to rebuild, even if Cabrera can bounce back and add some productive years before he’s done. I don’t mean to pick on the legends, but there’s a lot of time left on this deal, and Cabrera’s numbers were waning even before his season-ending injury in 2018.

Chris Davis- 4 years, 92 million (average salary of 23 million)

Last but not least, I think this is a no-doubter as the worst contract in baseball, and at least it belongs to the Baltimore Orioles.

Chris Davis signed a seven year, 161 million dollar deal before the 2015 season, and he still has four years remaining. That wouldn’t be that big of a deal at age 32, except that he just put up historically low numbers this year, and had arguably the worst season in professional baseball history. That’s not an overstatement, he was truly horrific.

And for his efforts, Davis is still due to collect a whopping 92 million over the last four years of his deal in Baltimore. Baltimore’s recently departed GM Dan Duquette made plenty of good moves throughout his tenure in the front office, but he probably deserves to lose his job for signing off on that one alone, even if it was rumoured that he wasn’t fully in favour at the time.

So while Tulowitzki’s contract doesn’t look good at all these days, it could always be worse based on the candidates directly above, and there’s also some reasonably comparable ones out there across the league as well. With that in mind, it might be possible to move Tulowitzki’s contract after all, even if it feels like a pretty tall order.