Blue Jays breaking news: Troy Tulowitzki released

In a bit of a surprise announcement on Tuesday, the Blue Jays released veteran shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who had two guaranteed years remaining on his contract.

So far this offseason we’ve been asking ourselves where the Blue Jays would find room for Troy Tulowitzki on the 25 man roster and in the lineup, if he managed to get healthy. That’s no longer a problem for Charlie Montoyo to solve.

The Blue Jays announced on their Twitter feed on Tuesday that Tulowitzki had been released from his contract that had two years and a minimum of $38 million guaranteed left. He is due 20 million for the 2019 season, 14 million in 2020, and a four million dollar buyout for 2021.

It’s a bit of a surprise move, only in that the Blue Jays aren’t usual big spenders when it comes to buying out contracts. There were cries for the same to happen to Kendrys Morales last year, and even when it seemed like the only solution to his struggles, the Blue Jays held steady. With Tulowitzki the situation was a little different though.

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Last week I argued that it was possible the Blue Jays front office wouldn’t’ want Tulowitzki to find a way to get healthy. The reason for that is it would make it tougher to fit the rest of their young players on the 25 man roster, and it might take away from the playing time of young potential stars like Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and eventually Bo Bichette.

While Tulowitzki was a crucial part of the Blue Jays unexpected run to the playoffs in 2015, he’s been largely a disappointment since. We haven’t seen him on the field since late June of 2017 when he badly sprained his ankle while running out a ground ball, and it still remains to be seen if he’ll ever make it back on a big league ball diamond.

There were rumours that the Blue Jays had met with Tulowitzki’s agent yesterday, so this move makes a little more sense in that context. Our own Clayton Richer argued last week as well that the Blue Jays should maybe cut bait on the 5x All-Star, like his Ken Giles for Roberto Osuna prediction as well, he hit the nail on the head. I’m going to hear about that one for a while now too.

Tulowitzki will finish his Blue Jay tenure having played in 238 games and slashing .250/.313/.414 with 36 home runs and 122 RBI, earning 4.8 bWAR, most of which came during his first full year in Toronto when he was worth 3.4 bWAR, the last time we saw him even remotely healthy. Unfortunately it’s been a losing battle for since him.

We’ll update you with more details here at Jays Journal as they become available.